The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is hoping to regain its lost seats in Gujarat in the coming general elections and take its tally back to around 20 seats from the 14 it had won in 2004.
With the party’s prime ministerial candidate LK Advani filing his nomination papers from Gandhinagar, the party is banking on the changes wrought by delimitation to work the trick in at least two seats — Sabarkantha in Saurashtra and in Kheda in central Gujarat — where it lost heavily in the last Lok Sabha elections. In Sabarkantha, the Vadgam Assembly segment was dominated by minority communities, while the Danta Assembly segment had a large tribal presence. Both these areas have been excised following delimitation, raising hopes of an easy BJP victory this time.
In the Kheda constituency in central Gujarat, Bala was an Assembly segment which was considered a Congress stronghold, as it was dominated by Other Backward Classes (OBC). This, too, has been removed from the constituency, and it is hoped this will help BJP candidate Devisinh Jesubhai Chauhan.
BJP spokesperson Yamal Vyas says the correct way to assess voting changes is to compare Lok Sabha seats by the performance of the various political parties in the 2007 Assembly elections as the benchmark, and not by results of the 2004 Lok Sabha elections.