Among the contenders for the post were Geniben Thakor and Lalji Desai, but the party eventually fell back on Chavda, signalling a return to experienced hands.The frequent leadership changes underscore the Congress’s internal turmoil and its repeated failures at the ballot box. Jagdish Thakor had earlier resigned as president after the party’s rout in the 2022 Assembly elections, making way for Shaktisinh Gohil in June 2023, a tenure that too proved short-lived.Congress’s electoral decline in Gujarat has been steep and persistent. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the party managed 11 out of 26 seats with a 44% vote share, trailing the BJP by just 3.5per cent.However, by 2014, the BJP swept all 26 seats with a massive 26.2 per cent vote margin over Congress. The trend continued in 2019, with the BJP again claiming all 26 seats and widening its vote margin to over 30 per cent. In 2024, Congress barely broke the drought, winning just one seat, a symbolic gain amid a sea of losses.In the state’s assembly politics too, Congress has failed to win power since 1995, suffering consecutive defeats in 1998, 2002, 2007, 2012, 2017, and 2022.The party now hopes that the combined experience of Amit Chavda and Tushar Chaudhary can help arrest its decline and rebuild its base ahead of future electoral battles. However, with a decimated cadre, dwindling vote share, and a resurgent BJP, the path ahead for Gujarat Congress remains steep and uncertain.
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