In a major defeat, the opposition Congress on Tuesday lost all eight seats for which the bypolls were held, necessitated after many MLAs from the party had resigned and later defected to the ruling BJP. The BJP had fielded five Congress turncoats, who along with three other BJP leaders, won the bypolls comfortably.
Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani termed the result as "trailer" of the Assembly election to be held in 2022. "Today's victory has strengthened the party with 111 seats in the Assembly," Rupani said. He also hailed party candidate Vijay Patel who won by a record margin of over 60,000 votes. Congress turncoat Brijesh Merja won by 4,649 votes, the lowest margin.
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State Congress President Amit Chavda while conceding the defeat said, "There was anger amongst the voters on issues such as mismanagement of coronavirus pandemic, farm crisis, tickets to traitors (Congress turncoats), fall of democratic values among others. Yet, we didn't win. It seems that I think BJP won because the party used Sam, Dam, Dand, Bhed (win by all means). But we will look into all the factors behind the result."
Read: Counting for Bypolls on in 11 states: Key takeaways
In the run-up to Rajya Sabha polls earlier this year, eight Congress legislators had resigned which helped the BJP win three of four seats despite not having the required number. Most of these leaders have joined BJP since then. After the bypolls were announced, the BJP chose five of them that included Pradyumansinh Jadeja, J V Kakadiya, Akshay Patel, Jitu Chaudhry and Brijesh Merja for Abdasa, Dhari, Karjan, Kaprada and Morbi assembly seats respectively. They all won the bypolls despite Congress campaigning against them as "gaddar" or traitors.
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