Setback to Congress as Gujarat BJP clinches Vav in bypolls

Ahmedabad: The ruling BJP candidate won the Vav assembly by-election against the Congress rival in a closely fought battle.

BJP candidate Swarupji Thakor won the seat defeating Congress candidate Gulabhsinh Rajput by a narrow margin of 2,353 votes. Thakor received 91,755 votes while Rajput got 89,402 votes.

Mavji Patel, who contested as an independent after BJP denied him ticket, garnered 27,173 votes.

The Vav seat fell vacant after the resignation of Congress MLA Geniben Thakor following her election to the Lok Sabha from Banaskantha. She was the only opposition candidate who won in the polls while the remaining 25 seats went to BJP.

Congress had fielded former MLA Rajput against BJP's Thakor. The BJP saw rebellion in the party when its leader Mavji Patel decided to contest as an independent.

In the 2022 assembly election, Geniben had defeated Thakor from the same seat. She was one of the 17 MLAs who could win in the election in which BJP won a record 156 seats in the house of 182.

During the counting of votes, Rajput was ahead of his opponent with comfortable margin but in the last couple of rounds of counting, the table turned in favour of BJP.

Minister of state for home Harsh Sanghavi quipped on X, "Interesting Turn of Events! Many Congress supporters who were questioning me on Twitter about the Gujarat Vav seat by-elections are now mysteriously silent. Their trailing replies have vanished into thin air after the Vav seat results were announced! Guess some people can't handle the trust!"

Vav has been a Congress bastion since long which is dominated by Thakor community in numbers while Chaudhary community is considered second in numbers but influential because of their economic status. The constituency also has a significant number of dalits and Brahim communities.

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Assembly Elections 2024 | The Maharashtra Assembly polls took place against the backdrop of a fractured political landscape in the western state where the Shiv Sena and NCP went up against the Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar factions, even as the BJP and Congress tried to make their mark. Maha Yuti are currently comfortably poised to win. Meanwhile, in Jharkhand, the JMM faced a challenge after Hemant Soren's arrest and Champai, a longstanding party member, joining the BJP, but look set to retain power with its I.N.D.I.A. allies. Check live updates and track the latest coverage, live news, in-depth opinions, and analyses only on Deccan Herald.

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