Exactly a year after he was elected Congress President, Rahul Gandhi has steered his party to election victories in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan and possibly in Madhya Pradesh where the party was in a neck-and-neck race with the ruling BJP throughout the day.

After the disastrous loss in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and the series of defeats in subsequent Assembly elections, the current results will be the first outright victory for the Congress in a direct contest against the BJP and is expected to be a morale booster for the party as it gears up to take on the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in next year's general elections.