Gujarat Bypolls: Eight-seat Assembly Election Taken On November 3
Gandhinagar:
The BJP is on the verge of cleaning up the contours of Gujarat, the party leading to the eight seats for which the vote took place on November 3.
Chief Minister Vijay Rupani called the party’s impending victory “a trailer for the next election”; Gujarat is expected to hold Plenary Assembly elections in 2022.
The ruling party leads to Abdasa, Dangs, Dhari, Gadhada, Kaprada, Karjan, Morbi and Limbdi.
As of 1:41 p.m., the gap between the BJP and Congress candidates is over 23,000 votes in four constituencies – Abdasa, Limbdi, Dangs and Kaprada. The advance to the siege of Gadhada was also over 20,000 previously, but has since declined to around 15,000.
In Karjan, the BJP is ahead of more than 9,000 votes and in Dhara, the advance of the BJP is over 8,900 votes.
The closest fight is in Morbi, where Congress’ JJ Patel follows BJP’s Brijesh Merja by less than 1,500 votes. Mr. Patel was actually the head of that riding earlier today.
A total of 81 contestants contested last week’s bypasses, which took place amid tight restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic, for which a 60.75% turnout was recorded.
The bypasses were made necessary after the resignation of congressmen ahead of Rajya Sabha’s elections in June. The resignation of these MPs helped the BJP win three of the four seats in the Upper House.
Five of these MPs subsequently joined the BJP and are contesting these bypasses on the ruling party’s ticket. The five are JV Kakadia from Dhari, Mr. Merja from Morbi, Jitu Chaudhary from Kaprada tribal headquarters, Akshay Patel from Karajan and Mr. Jadeja from Abdasa.
The BJP won 99 of the 182 assembly seats in the 2017 polls, with Congress winning 77. The remaining six were split between the NCP, the Bharatiya tribal party and independent candidates.
With the contribution of PTI
