BJP hold on high profile seat

LS CONSTITUENCY WATCH/GANDHINAGAR

Gandhinagar has always been a high profile constituency, with stalwarts like Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani, former Chief Election Commissioner T N Seshan and former Gujarat DGP P K Dutta contesting on various occasions.

This year, it will again be L K Advani contesting the seat on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket. Incidentally, Advani's name was in the first list of candidates announced by the BJP.

"This is one seat, where the BJP will win even if leaders do not campaign. People will elect a top BJP leader who is the deputy prime minister," said a BJP spokesperson here.

Uncertainty prevails over the name of the Congress candidate for the seat. In fact, while a panel of four candidates has been submitted by the state unit of the Congress to the party's central election committee a week ago, no names were submitted for the Gandhinagar seat.

However, insiders said the name of C K Patel, a non resident Gujarati and Congress supporter, is being seriously considered for taking on Advani for the seat.

State Congress president B K Gadhvi said the remaining list of candidates will be announced by Sunday or Monday and Gandhinagar will have a strong candidate.

"We have shortlisted a couple of names, but these cannot be disclosed at present. However, the Congress candidate for Gandhinagar will be a strong leader," he said.

Statistics are loaded heavily in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party, as far as the Gandhinagar seat is concerned.

The BJP has held the seat for the past five general elections, after wresting it from the Congress in 1989. Advani himself is seeking a re-election from the Gandhinagar seat for the third successive term.

In the 1999 general election, Advani defeated former Chief Election Commissioner T N Seshan of the Congress. While Advani polled 61 per cent of the votes, Seshan polled 35 per cent of the votes.

In the general election prior to that, Advani defeated Congress' P K Dutta, a retired Director General of Police (DGP). Advani secured 59.86 per cent of the votes, while Dutta got 29.26 per cent.

In the 1996 general elections, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee won the Gandhinagar seat, defeating Popatlal Patel of the Congress. In the 1991 elections, Advani defeated G I Patel of the Congress.

In the 1989 general elections, Shankerji Vaghela of the Bharatiya Janata Party defeated Kokila Vyas of the Congress.

In the two general elections preceding the 1989 elections (the 1984 and 1980 elections), the Congress held the Gandhinagar seat.

The Gandhinagar constituency (there were 21.11 lakh voters as on January 1, 2004) constitutes the city of Gandhinagar, along with certain areas of the western parts of Ahmedabad.

These are traditional BJP stronghold pockets with MLAs from these areas winning their seats with record margins in the December 2002 Assembly elections.