Congress President Rahul Gandhi on December 23 visited Gujarat and offered prayers at Somnath temple. Rahul Gandhi, who visited the state for the first time after being elected as party president, will hold review meetings with newly-elected MLAs and party workers following Gujarat assembly election results. In the recently concluded Gujarat Assembly Elections, where the party’s electoral campaign was spearheaded by Rahul Gandhi, the Congress party gave a tough challenge for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and played a major role in decreasing BJP’s vote share and assembly seats compared to 2012 assembly elections. According to experts, Gujarat assembly election was the first time when Rahul Gandhi took the lead and somewhat succeeded in making further in-grounds for the Congress party.

The Congress party, improving from its previous Gujarat assembly election result, was able to secure 77 assembly seats, a gain of 16 seats while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) total tally of seats remained at 99, a loss of 16 seats from 2012. Congress party along with the Patidars support was able to manage to influence BJP’s popularity and hurt party’s aspiration and mission to secure 150 seats. However, with so much of hope and the Congress party, which according to reports was hopeful of forming the government in Gujarat, couldn’t accomplish its objective.

Meanwhile, visiting the state to review party’s performance, Congress president Rahul Gandhi during his 3-day stay in PM Modi’s homeland will meet party workers across the state. The newly elected Congress president will also meet party leaders from North, Central, Saurashtra and South Zone. He will also address party workers meet at Gujarat University Convention Hall at GNBC.