Gujarat Assembly elections: Torn between change and continuity

Congress is banking on the unrest caused due to quota agitations and mobilisation of a non-parliamentary opposition to the BJP

Underneath the tussle between contesting narratives in the Gujarat poll battle, the Congress party is facing a spring of green shoots amid a climate of red zones on their poll platter. 

Urban constituencies have been increasingly affirmative towards the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the past decade. Rural ones, especially those reserved for Scheduled Tribes (STs), have expressed consistent support to the Congress. 

Constituencies reserved for Scheduled Castes (SCs) have mostly returned BJP candidates in 2007 and 2012. The Congress took away the BJP's leadership of rural local bodies — the district and taluka panchayats — in the 2015 local election. 

More