Saurashtra votes for Congress, but no clear trend from other rural belts

However, available data seems to suggest that barring the Saurashtra region, the ruling BJP hasn't fared that badly in the rural areas of north and central Gujarat

Rural Gujarat was expected to be the key deciding factor in the state polls but, according to political experts, the election results on Monday showed no uniform trend in the rural areas, except in Saurashtra, where the Congress almost doubled its seat count.

In the 2012 elections, of the 98 rural seats in Gujarat (classified according to the 2011 census), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won 48 seats, while the Congress bagged the remaining 50. 

In this election, the BJP was expected to fare worse in the rural belt, with prices of major commercial crops, particularly groundnut and cotton, falling below