Gandhinagar, October 13, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday targeted Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his criticism of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, asking whether the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) decisive victory in the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation (GMC) election was also a result of the exercise.
The BJP won 38 of the corporation’s 44 seats, retaining control of the civic body. Shah cited the results to question the Opposition’s allegations concerning electoral roll revision and asserted that the party continued to enjoy strong public support in Gujarat.
“Is this the result of SIR?” Shah asked, challenging the argument that electoral roll revision could explain the BJP’s electoral performance.
The Home Minister, who represents the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency, also highlighted the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) poor showing. The party contested 32 seats but failed to retain its security deposit in any of them, according to Shah.
He described the outcome as a reflection of the mood of Gujarat’s voters and their continued support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Shah also claimed that the BJP had increased its vote share by around 10 percentage points compared with the previous corporation election.
The BJP’s seat tally, however, declined from 41 in 2021 to 38 in 2026, while the Congress improved its representation from two seats to five. An Independent candidate won one seat, and the AAP failed to win any.
According to the detailed results cited in the election report, the BJP’s vote share rose from 46.11 per cent in 2021 to around 56.5 per cent in 2026. The Congress also increased its vote share from 27.79 per cent to 37.05 per cent, while the AAP’s share dropped sharply from 22.22 per cent to 4.38 per cent.
Shah asks Congress to introspect
Shah challenged the Congress leadership to examine the reasons behind its repeated electoral defeats in Gujarat, claiming that the party had not won an election in the state for 41 years and referring to 1985 as the last time it secured an electoral victory there.
He argued that the results demonstrated continued backing for the BJP despite what he described as negative politics by the Opposition.
The GMC election covered 11 wards and 44 seats, with counting held on Tuesday.
The BJP also retained control of the Thara and Okha municipalities. In Thara, it won 19 of the 24 seats, while the Congress secured five. In Okha, the BJP won 33 of 36 seats, including four in which its candidates were elected unopposed. The Congress secured the remaining three seats contested at the polls.
The results leave the BJP firmly in control of Gandhinagar’s civic body, even as the Congress improved its seat tally and the AAP lost the seat it had won in the previous election.
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