The Congress misplaced its bastion of Vav Meeting seat within the bypoll, with the outcome going proper right down to the wire. The celebration’s Gulabsinh Rajput misplaced to the BJP’s Swarupji Thakor by simply over 2,400 votes, the lowest-ever margin for the seat. Earlier than he pulled forward, Thakor was trailing Rajput for many of the counting course of.
Vav was Gujarat’s lone bypoll battle, necessitated by sitting Congress MLA Geniben Thakor’s election to the Lok Sabha earlier this 12 months from Banaskantha (Vav is an Meeting phase throughout the seat). Geniben is the Congress’s lone Lok Sabha MP from the state. Thakor had misplaced to Geniben within the 2022 Meeting elections by 15,601 votes from Vav.
Gujarat BJP chief CR Paatil thanked voters for handing a “grand victory” each in Vav and within the Maharashtra Meeting elections. “Even within the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress MLA (Geniben) had bought decrease votes within the Vav Meeting phase,” he mentioned.
With the lack of Vav seat, the Congress, which received solely 17 seats out of 182 within the 2022 Meeting elections, is right down to 11. The BJP’s quantity has gone as much as 162 from 156, with 5 Congress MLAs switching sides of which 4 later received within the bypolls.
This additionally signifies that the Congress is right down to one of many seven Meeting seats in north Gujarat’s Banaskantha district – as soon as thought of its citadel.
Congress candidate Rajput, who had misplaced Tharad in 2022 by round 26,506 votes, was additionally harm by the entry of BJP insurgent and former MLA Mavji Patel, who belongs to the influential Chaudhary-Patel group, within the race as an Impartial. The BJP’s Thakor was beginning with a bonus within the Thakor-OBC dominated Vav. Mavji Patel secured 27,195 votes.
Patil Saturday claimed Mavji contesting was a Congress “tactic”. “The Congress put up a former BJP individual to make it a three-way contest, however even he licked the mud,” he mentioned.
The BJP campaigned onerous in Vav, with Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, and senior BJP leaders akin to Paatil and ministers chipping in.
