Key facts
- The Gujarat Congress will soon have no representation in the Rajya Sabha.
- The party's sole Rajya Sabha member, Shaktisinh Gohil, retires on June 21.
- This is the first time the Rajya Sabha will be without a member from Gujarat's main opposition party.
- Congress's vote share in Gujarat has fallen significantly since 2017.
- The party failed to win any seats in recent local body elections.
The Gujarat Congress is poised to lose all its representation in the Rajya Sabha following the retirement of its sole member, Shaktisinh Gohil, on June 21. This development underscores a significant electoral decline for the party in the state, which has seen its vote share erode substantially over the past decade.
Historically, the Congress managed to send around three Members of Parliament to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat. However, following electoral setbacks, particularly in the 2022 state assembly elections, and the passing of senior leader Ahmed Patel, the party's representation has dwindled. With only 12 MLAs remaining, retaining the single Rajya Sabha seat has become impossible.
The erosion of the Congress's electoral standing is evident in its vote share. While the party maintained a voter base of over 35% since 2002, its performance has significantly worsened. In the 2017 assembly elections, Congress secured 77 seats with a 41.40% vote share. However, by 2022, this figure plummeted to 27.28% of the vote share and just 17 seats, with a substantial portion of its vote share reportedly shifting to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Similar trends were observed in Lok Sabha polls, where Congress secured over 32% of the votes in 2014 and 2019 but failed to win any seats. While the party managed to win one seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections with 31.24% of the vote, its recent performance in local body elections has been a complete failure, drawing a blank in 15 municipal corporations.
Senior party leaders attribute the crisis to the state leadership's inability to galvanize core voters and organize support effectively. There is a sentiment that the party high command relies on outdated information from the same individuals who have not delivered success, while grassroots workers face a deteriorating situation.