Chandigarh, May 30 -- The Punjab civic poll results have dealt a fresh setback to the Congress in a state where the party is seen as the principal challenger to the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Despite several leaders gunning for the chief minister's chair, the Congress failed to deliver strong performances in their strongholds, exposing the party's organisational weaknesses and internal divisions months before the high-stakes 2027 assembly elections. Contesting 1,550 seats across the state, the party managed to convert only 397 (25%) into victories. The party suffered the worst drubbing in Gidderbaha, considered the bastion of Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring. The AAP clinched 17 out of 19 seats in Gidderbaha municipal council, underlining the Congress' inability to retain its urban and semi-urban support base. The only solace came from Kapurthala, where old-timer Rana Gurjeet Singh proved his mettle with a decisive win for the party in the local municipal corporation, securing 31 of the 50 wards. Another consolation was in the Chamkaur Sahib municipal council, the home turf of former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi, where it secured seven wards against AAP's three. While the party had hoped that civic polls would provide much-needed momentum ahead of the assembly elections, the results instead exposed weak booth-level mobilisation and factional divisions within the state unit. Senior leaders had claimed that dissatisfaction over governance issues, law and order concerns and financial stress in Punjab would hurt the ruling party, but the Congress could not capitalise on these issues to garner public support. Pressure will now intensify on the Punjab Congress leadership to address organisational weaknesses and present a more cohesive political strategy against the ruling AAP....