NEW DELHI: Having barely finished his three-day road show in Gujarat passing Surat, Rahul Gandhi is set to return to the commercial town to observe “black day” on the anniversary of demonetisation on November 8. His focus would be on the GST discontent and on how demonetisation hurt traders in the state.

He would spend the day meeting traders and stress how voting for Congress would help them in this BJP stronghold.

GST guidelines are said to have incensed manufacturers in the textile town, a fact that the BJP-led Centre appeared to acknowledge when it announced changes in GST norms before the imposition of model code of conduct.

Congress has decided to observe November 8 as black day and will focus on “the ill effects” of notebandi and GST. Rahul’s second visit to Surat in four days indicates that Congress Sees a real opportunity in the “discontent” in Gujarati businesses.

Surat has emerged as a confluence of sorts of angry commerce and the anti-BJP Patidar agitation. Rahul held a rally in Surat from November 1-3 where he touched upon the traders’s GST woes and reminded Patidars of “police atrocities” on agitators seeking OBC status.

Long sidelined in PM Narendra Modi’s home state, Congress has stepped into tricky territory by siding with Patidars who are seeking OBC quota. Patidars’s demand can only be accepted by antagonising OBCs. As a compromise, Congress has proposed a separate 20% quota for poor upper castes.