Bharatiya Janata Party survived a scare to scrape through in Gujarat, the home state of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah and a saffron bastion for more than two decades, staving off a humiliation which would have hurt the Prime Minister and the BJP chief. Till not very long ago, a BJP win had appeared a foregone conclusion, even after 22 years of incumbency.
This is the first state election since Modi became PM in 2014 where BJP has retained office. The outcome marks Congress’s sixth consecutive defeat in Gujarat, but the wafer-thin margin just after theinstallation of RahulGandhi as party chief should revive the party’s spirits ahead of key state elections in 2018 and consolidate his claim as principal challenger while underlining that BJP has quite a task on its hands in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
 

Bharatiya Janata Party survived a scare to scrape through in Gujarat, the home state of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah and a saffron bastion for more than two decades, staving off a humiliation which would have hurt the Prime Minister and the BJP chief. Till not very long ago, a BJP win had appeared a foregone conclusion, even after 22 years of incumbency.
This is the first state election since Modi became PM in 2014 where BJP has retained office. The outcome marks Congress’s sixth consecutive defeat in Gujarat, but the wafer-thin margin just after theinstallation of RahulGandhi as party chief should revive the party’s spirits ahead of key state elections in 2018 and consolidate his claim as principal challenger while underlining that BJP has quite a task on its hands in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.