Ahead of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi's likely elevation to the party’s president post, the grand party fared poorly in its vice president Rahul Gandhi's Lok Sabha constituency of Amethi in the Uttar Pradesh civic polls even as rival BJP put up an impressive show.
Out of the four seats of chairpersons of two nagar palika parishads and two nagar panchayats, the BJP won two, SP one and the fourth went to an independent.
The BJP won the contest in the Jais nagar palika parishad defeating the Congress and but stood third in Gauriganj where SP won. In Jais, Mahesh Pratap of BJP polled 3,461 and Congress candidate Ishrat Hussain 2,829.
In Gauriganj SP's Rajpati polled 5,486 defeating BSP's Tara Devi by 1395 votes. Here, BJP finished third and Congress a poor fourth.
In Amethi town area, BJP nominee Chandrama Devi was re-elected defeating independent Laik with a margin of 1,035 votes.
In Musafirkhana, independent Brijesh Agrahari was re-elected with a margin of 982 votes defeating independent Firoj. Here, the BJP nominee polled only 208 and SP candidate only 47 votes.
The Congress's poor performance is a setback for Rahul Gandhi as it comes ahead of the Gujarat Assembly polls and also his expected elevation as the party chief.
