The RJP had received another severe jolt when a large chunk of members in the Kheda and Anand district panchayats defected to the Congress on April 9. And just nine days back, 31 members had resigned from the Vadodara unit. They included district unit president Yogin Amin, Ramesh Thakore, a minister in the previous Congress government and Ashwin Thakore.

Similarly, in the 34-seat Kheda district panchayat, some 14 RJP members, led by district unit president Mukesh Shukla, joined the Congress, reducing the RJP to a minority. The RJP was in majority with 16 members in the district panchayat, followed by the BJP with 14 and the Congress with four members. Now, the Congress is in majority.

In the 29-member Anand district panchayat, 11 RJP members joined the Congress, swelling its strength to 13 from just two and reducing the RJP number to just one.

Do these mean the RJP is losing base at the grassroots level? State RJP president Madhusudan Mistry disagree. Admitting that party workers' morale has plummeted, Mistry says the RJP will not be affected. "We are least affected by these developments because only those elements are leaving the party who were earlier in the Congress and had joined the RJP with the hope to remain in power", Mistry says, adding those who joined the RJP after leaving the BJP because of ideological commitment to the party are solidly behind it.

Mistry, however, says "the Congress is engineering defections in the RJP by throwing crumbs at the fence-sitters", which, he sees as part of the Congress gameplan to finish off its only rival.

"We are least bothered about these developments because as part of the process of building the party organisation we are recruiting committed youth, professionals and businessmen at every level", Mistry says, adding "over 1,000 such committed people have joined the RJP."

Meanwhile, according to State RJP secretary Jagrupsinh Rajput, some 50 Congress workers from the Kankaria ward the joined RJP on Sunday.