DNA Edit: Great Gujarat gamble - Congress losing the plot in state just ahead of LS polls

The Great Gujarat Dream that Rahul Gandhi and his party — the Congress — were nurturing over the last couple of years ago is showing signs of crumbling, that too just when the Lok Sabha elections are around the corner.

The party was hoping to upset the Bharatiya Janata Party applecart in the 2017 Assembly elections, riding on the anti-incumbency wave, and almost pulled off the impossible — restricting the mighty BJP to below 100 seats.

The victory for the saffron party was mainly possible due to the unrelenting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who still holds an emotional connect with the people of Gujarat. The Congress challenge in the BJP bastion was propped up by the troika of Hardik Patel, through his Patidar agitation; Jignesh Mevani, who used the violence against Dalits to whip up a state-wide frenzy; and Alpesh Thakore, who managed to ride on the aspirations of the OBC voters.

Thakore even joined the Congress even as Hardik and Jignesh feigned to keep their distance. The Congress was also buoyed by the fact that the party managed to get Ahmed Patel, the coterie man, elected to Rajya Sabha in a fierce tight contest held just ahead of the Assembly polls.

Things have changed ever since. The brinkmanship of Amit Shah and the measures taken by the Modi government to placate the trading community and SMEs through a slew of steps to ease out the GST pain has quelled the anger against the party.

While Thakore is allegedly negotiating a switchover to BJP camp even while bargaining with his party leaders, Hardik is no longer the force that he used to be. One after another, Congress MLAs too are deserting the ship, with many finding shelter in the saffron camp. Gujarat, it seems, is toast for the Congress.