Gujarat by-polls: BJP retains 7 seats, Congress wrests three

Experts were seeing Congress' win in the three assembly seats as a result of PM Modi's exit from the state, thereby weakening the state BJP's strength

The by-polls in nine assembly seats and one Lok Sabha seat which were seen as a litmus test for Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel saw mixed results with Congress making inroads into BJP bastions.

While BJP won six assembly seats out of nine, it conceded defeat to Congress in three including Deesa, Mangrol and Khambaliya which were considered as BJP strongholds. This, as against a complete sweep in the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year.  With this victory total strength of Congress in the state assembly goes up to 58 from current 55 seats.

The party was also able to retain the one Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat at Vadodara where it fielded Ranjanben Bhatt after Prime Minister Narendra Modi vacated the seat in order to retain his Varanasi seat. Bhatt defeated her Congress rival Narendra Rawat by a margin of around 329,000 votes as against PM Modi who had won the seat by 570,000 votes.

By-polls were necessitated post resignations by sitting BJP MLAs who won Lok Sabha election of 2014, including PM Modi, who also vacated Maninagar seat as sitting MLA.

The six seats that BJP retained include Maninagar, Tankara, Talaja, Anand, Kheda and Limkheda.  

Apparently, experts are seeing Congress' win in the three assembly seats as a result of PM Modi's exit from the state, thereby weakening the state BJP's strength.  

While BJP party leaders could not be reached, Congress President in Gujarat, Arjun Modhwadia said, “This is victory for all the workers of Congress who have worked very hard. This is the anger among the people which has come out in for of votes. This is anger over the false promises that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made during the Lok Sabha elections early this year.”

“Chief Minister Anandiben Patel who has recently completed 100 days in power and is still in the honeymoon period, had asked the people to gift all 10 seats to Modi who will be in state on his 64th birthday. But it seems that people have chosen to gift the Congress with three assembly seats out of the nine where the by-polls were held. Not only that but the margin of loss has also reduced significantly,” Modhwadia added.

Among other assembly seats while Maninagar candidate for BJP Suresh Patel won by a margin of 49,652 votes, Kesrisinh Solanki won by 8,610 votes in Matar for the party.  Further, BJP's Anand candidate Rohit Patel defeated Congress' Kanti Sodha Parmar by 5,243 votes.

The other BJP candidates including Vinchhiya Bhuriya, Shiv Gohil and Bavanjee Metaliya won Limkheda, Talaja and Tankara assembly seats by 23,934, 9518 and 11,731 votes, respectively.

Meanwhile, the Congress victories in Khambaliya, Mangrol and Deesa came by margins of 1227, 22682, and 10,394 votes by candidates Meraman Ahir, Babu Vaja and Gova Rabari, respectively.