LS polls: Voting begins for 25 seats in Gujarat, BJP looks to repeat sweep

Polling began Tuesday morning for 25 of the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat, and for bypolls in five assembly constituencies in the state.

Voting began at 50,788 polling booths across the state at 7 am and will end at 6 pm, an official said. The BJP has already drawn first blood with Mukesh Dalal winning the Surat Lok Sabha seat unopposed after the nomination of the Congress' Nilesh Kumbhani was rejected over irregularities in the signature of proposers and other candidates withdrew.

The BJP is looking to repeat its sweep of 2014 and 2019 in the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
 

Modi and Shah will cast their votes at booths in Ahmedabad city that fall under Gandhinagar Lok Sabha seat. Modi will exercise his franchise at a booth in Nishan Public School in Ranip locality, while Shah will vote at Naranpura sub-zonal office in the city. As per poll officials, a total of 4.97 crore persons, comprising 25.6 million  males, 24.1 million females and 1,534 from the third gender, are eligible to vote in 50,788 polling booths in the single-phase Lok Sabha elections in the state.

These comprise 17,275 polling booths in urban areas and 33,513 in rural areas, EC data showed. The EC said it has deployed 50,960 ballot units, 49,140 control units and 49,140 VVPATs for the Lok Sabha polls and assembly bypolls in the state.

Keeping in view the possibility of a heat wave on polling day, arrangements have been made to provide sufficient shade at all polling stations, an official said. Voter assistance booths have been set up at all polling stations, he said.

Of the 25 seats, Ahmedabad (East) has the highest number of candidates at 18, making it necessary for the poll body to use two ballot units across its 1,820 polling stations. The lowest number of candidates, at three, is in Bardoli. Navsari has the highest number of voters at 2.2 million followed by Gandhinagar and Rajkot, while the lowest is in Bharuch, as per EC data.

Among the prominent candidates in the fray are Union Home Minister Shah from Gandhinagar, as well as his cabinet colleagues Mansukh Mandaviya and Parshottam Rupala from Porbandar and Rajkot, respectively. During the campaign, the BJP had to face the ire of the Kshatriya community over a remark made by Rupala in Rajkot. He had claimed several rulers from the community had "roti and beti" (marriage and trade) relations with the British and other foreign invaders.

Rupala is up against former Congress MLA Paresh Dhanani, who had defeated him in the 2002 assembly polls. Several leaders from the community had recently made an appeal to their brethren to forgive Rupala for the remark and vote for the BJP for the sake of the nation and PM Modi.

Voting is also being held in bypolls for five state assembly seats in the state, namely Khambhat, Vijapur, Waghodia, Porbandar, and Manavadar. The Congress, which is fighting the Lok Sabha polls in alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party, hopes this move to prevent division of opposition votes will stop the BJP from repeating its sweeping performance of 2014 and 2019. As part of the alliance, the Congress, which has fielded four sitting and eight former MLAs, got 24 seats (including Surat), while the AAP has been given Bhavnagar and Bharuch.

The BJP's campaign was led by PM Modi and Shah. For the Congress, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi were among the star campaigners, along with Mallikarjun Kharge, who recently addressed a rally in Ahmedabad.

Others who campaigned included Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Nirmala Sitharaman for the BJP and Ashok Gehlot, Shashi Tharoor, Abhishek Sanghvi and Pawan Khera etc for the Congress. The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP's campaign saw rallies by Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann as well as senior leaders Sanjay Singh and Gopal Yadav. Sunita Kejriwal, the wife of the Delhi CM who is in jail in connection with an excise policy linked case, also held a road show in Bharuch.

The Congress tried to corner the BJP by claiming unemployment, inflation were at an all-time high. The Congress also tried to impress upon the voters that the BJP would change the Constitution if it retained power, while the ruling party hit back claiming the opposition party planned to snatch quotas of Dalits, tribals and OBCs and give them to Muslims.