On July 29, 2017, 44 Congress members of the Gujarat assembly were flown to the Eagleton Golf Resort at Bidadi, near Bengaluru. Six Congress legislators had left the party in the days before. A Rajya Sabha election was due on August 8, and the party’s senior leader Ahmed Patel needed their votes.
The party said it wanted to stop the BJP from winning them over. The legislators stayed at the resort for more than a week. They flew back to Gujarat on August 7, the day before the vote.