Gandhinagar, Mar 3 (IANS): The Gujarat Congress chief Amit Chavda and the Leader of Opposition Party (LoP) Paresh Dhanani tendered resignations from their posts on Tuesday, following the party's debacle in the local body elections in Gujarat. The Congress leadership accepted their resignations. However, both will continue till the party finds their replacement.

On March 2, Congress' poor performance repeated in the Tehsil, district and municipality elections in Gujarat, after the grand old party was reduced to a paltry 55 seats from the 176 in the local body elections.

The Congress managed to clinch only 356 seats in the municipality elections and 157 in the panchayat polls.

Talking to the media on Tuesday, Amit Chavda said, "The results of the local body elections are contrary to our expectations. We accept the public mandate. I accept defeat as the party president here. We will continue to work for the people."

There was a buzz about the resignation of both the leaders after the Congress suffered defeat in 8-seat Assembly by-polls last year.

Last week the BJP retained power in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Rajkot, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar, proving it's dominance in the urban areas. The BJP vastly improved its performance by winning 483 out of the total 576 seats across the six civic bodies as compared to the previous election where it bagged 389 seats.