Fate of 788 candidates sealed in Gujarat elections

Tribal-dominated Narmada recorded the highest voter turnout among the 19 districts that went to polls in the first phase of assembly elections in Gujarat on Thursday.

About 60.47% of the electorate in the 89 constituencies in these 19 districts cast their votes in the first phase, as per data available at the time of filing this report. The fate of 788 candidates will be decided in the first phase. While Narmada topped with 73.02%, the turnout among districts was the lowest in Porbandar at 53.84%, as per the data.

While the tribal districts of South Gujarat recorded strong voter participation, the voting percentage in the Patel heartland districts like Amreli, Botad, Junagarh, Bhavnagar and Rajkot did not touch 60%, according to the numbers available.


In Surat district, the turnout was 60.01, while it was 72.32% in Tapi, 66.62% in Navsari and 65.29% in Valsad. The highest turnout in the Saurashtra region was in Morbi at 67.65%.

According to Gujarat chief electoral officer P Bharathi, 104 complaints were received by her office and another 221 complaints were received through the c-VIGIL app, a mobile application launched by the Election Commission.

Election authorities also received 18 complaints pertaining to EVMs. Three villages - Dhrafa in Jamnagar district, Samot in Narmada and Kesar in Bharuch - boycotted voting on Thursday. While the villagers had demanded separate booths for male and female voters in Dhrafa, those in Kesar refrained from voting citing their long pending demands on basic infrastructures. The villagers of Samot stayed away over a pending unresolved land issue, the CEO office said.