Congress forms committee to examine Gujarat poll rout

Congress was eyeing a comeback in the state but ended up with an embarrassing 17 seats in the recently concluded elections

NEW DELHI | Updated: 04 January, 2023 5:09 pm IST

Congress suffered a massive defeat in the recently concluded assembly elections in Gujarat

Days after the Congress suffered disastrous results in the recently concluded Gujarat assembly polls, the grand old party on Wednesday formed a three-member committee to find out the reason for the poll rout.

Congress general secretary KC Venugopal said that the party chief, Mallikarjun Kharge, has constituted a three-member fact-finding committee to evaluate the results of the recently concluded assembly elections in Gujarat and suggest measures to be taken, with immediate effect.

The party has named Nitin Raut as the chairman of the Committee with Dr Shakeel Ahmed Khan and Saptgiri Sankar Ulaka as its members.

Venugopal also said that the committee will submit its report within two weeks to the Congress chief.

The Congress, which was eyeing a comeback in the state in the assembly polls, was reduced to 17 seats, with the ruling BJP winning 156 seats. Meanwhile, the debutant Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won five assembly seats.

The grand old party won 77 seats in the 2017 assembly polls. However, before the 2022 assembly polls, several of the party’s MLAs had left the party, which brought its number down to 59 MLAs ahead of the assembly polls.

The ruling BJP has been in power in the state for the last 27 years.

The Congress, however, was second on 118 assembly seats, while the AAP dented its chances on over 35 seats where it came second.

Former party chief Rahul Gandhi, who has been leading the party’s Bharat Jodo Yatra from Tamil Nadu’s Kanyakumari since September 7, had only addressed two public meetings in the state in the run-up to the assembly elections.