Gujarat verdict: It’s thinner slices all round

Gandhinagar: Even though the final tally for BJP settled at 99 seats, the party clinched its win with below 5,000 margin in many seats and in some cases, the figure dipped below 1,000. Otherwise in an upswing, the Congress too saw such narrow wins, but often in BJP strongholds.

In Bapunagar, a Patidar-dominated seat in Ahmedabad, Congress candidate Prahlad Patel registered a win with 3,067 margin. Similarly in Jamjodhpur, Saurashtra, Congress candidate Chirag Kalariya defeated BJP’s local heavyweight China Sapariya with 2,518 votes. back in 2012, Sapariya had won with a margin of 28,191votes.

The story repeated over several seats in Saurashtra to cement the conclusion that Patidar agitation did dent BJP’s electoral fortune significantly in Gujarat.

In a reverse trend, where the BJP gained seats in north Gujarat, margins were slim in many seats such as Himmatnagar and Prantij. Ranjitsinh Chavda had managed a victory with a margin of 12,356 in 2012 for the Congress in Himmatnagar, but in 2017, as a BJP candidate, he had to make do with a margin of 1,712 votes.

However, anti-incumbency was felt across several seats where sitting candidates managed a wafer thin margin for their victory. Senior BJP leader and sitting Cabinet minister Bhupendrasinh Chudsama led the list with a margin of 327 votes in Dholka. In 2012, Chudasma had a comfortable margin of 18,845 votes. Congress too faced similar anti-incumbency in seats like Kaparda, where its candidate Jitu Chaudhary managed a win with 170 votes as against his own margin of 18,685 in 2012.

The floods too had an impact on results and, in some way, made Congress suffer for taking its MLAs to Bengaluru to save them from poaching. In Dhanera, one of the worst affected seats, Congress had changed its sitting candidate Joita Patel, who had won with 30,291 margin in 2012. However, the new candidate Natha Patel could only retain a margin of 2,093 votes in this traditional Congress seat.