New Delhi: If the Congress’ gaining a toehold in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat comes as a shock for the BJP, news from Vasundhara Raje’s Rajasthan is worse.

The party, which made a roaring comeback in the state after a decade – winning 162 of the 200 assembly seats and all 25 Lok Sabha seats – has lost in three of the four assembly seats in the by-elections.

The Congress had won in all three – Surajgarh, Weir and Nasirabad. But in Nasirabad, the winning margin of party candidate Ramnarayan Gujjar being just over 300 votes, a recount is on.

The result in Surajgarh will come as a particular shock for Chief Minister Raje, since the party candidate, former health minister Digambar Singh, was handpicked by her.

The Congress winner from Surajgarh was Shrawan Kumar. Bhajanlal won from Weir.

The silver lining for the BJP was the Kota South seat, where party candidate Sandeep Sharma won with a small margin.

The Congress had been in power in the state for a decade before being voted out in the assembly polls last year. The voting trend will now vindicate Congress’ new state chief, Sachin Pilot, who had dug in his heels after the party’s rout in the general elections.

By-polls in Rajasthan became necessary after the sitting MLAs – Sanwar Lal Jat (Nasirabad), Om Birla (Kota-South), Santosh Ahlawat (Surajgarh) and Bahadur Singh Koli (Weir) – resigned from the assembly following their election to Lok Sabha.