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The BJP today picked deputy mayor of Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) Ranjanben Bhatt to contest the Vadodara Lok Sabha seat for the by-elections to be held on September 13. The party also announced candidates for by-polls in nine assembly seats in the state. The by-elections in the state will be conducted along with 24 other assembly and two parliamentary seats across the country.
Bhatt has been corporator in VMC since many years and was recently elected as deputy mayor. She too was surprised to see her name in the list of candidate announce by the senior party leaders in New Delhi. Talking to local mediapersons she said that she did not expect her name to be nominated for the Lok Sabha seat vacated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who retained the Varanasi seat after the general elections. She will be facing Vadodara city Congress president Narendra Rawat who has been nominated by his party.
The BJP also announced names of the candidates for the nine assembly seats where the by-poll will be conducted next month. The BJP has fielded Lebjiji Thakor from Deesa, Suresh Patel from Modi’s assembly constituency Manainagar, Bavnji Patel from Tankara, Mulubhai Bera from Khambhalia, Laxmanbhai Jadev from Mangrol, Shivabhai Gohil from Talaja, Rohit J Patel from Anand, Kesrisinh Solanki from Matar and Vichhiya Bhuriya from Limkheda ST seat.
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The by-polls were necessitated for this assembly seat after the BJP MLAs from these seats got elected to the Lok Sabha in May this year. Gujarat Congress has announced its candidates for only five assembly seats. Jatin Kella from Modi’s assembly constituency Maninagar, Dilip Saradava from Tankara, Meraman Goriya from Khambhalia, Kanti Parmar from Anand and Chhatrasinh Meda from Limkheda ST seat.
At present, strength of BJP in 182-seat Gujarat assembly is 123 while that of Congress is 55. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has two seat while, JD (U) and independent hold one seat each. While it had won all the 26 Lok Sabah seat in the state during the general elections held early this year.
