AAP wins Gujarat’s Visavadar assembly bypoll, defeats BJP’s Kirit Patel
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Diverging Reports Breakdown
AAP wins Gujarat’s Visavadar assembly bypoll, BJP big winner in Kadi
The BJP and the Aam Aadmir Party (AAP) on Monday shared accolades in the Gujarat Assembly byelections. The former won the Kadi seat, while the Arvind Kejriwal-led party emerged victorious in the Visavadar seat as the Election Commission of India declared the results. A bypoll was necessitated after its sitting MLA Bhayani Bhupendrabhai resigned from the AAP and joined the BJP. The contest was seen as an opportunity to guage the Dalit community’s voting patterns in the region.
AAP’s Gopal Italia won the Visavadar Assembly seat with flying colours, having polled 75,942 votes and defeating the BJP’s Kirit Patel in a see-saw battle by 17,554 votes after all 21 rounds of counting were completed.
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Italia and Patel fought an interesting battle for over 15 rounds, before the AAP candidate took a decisive lead in the later stages and came out on top.
Congress’s Nitin Ranpariya was a distant third with just 5,501 votes.
However, it was smooth sailing for BJP candidate Rajendra Chavda in Kadi, who maintained a clear lead throughout and won the seat as he bagged 99,742 votes and defeated his nearest rival Ramesh Chavda by 39,452 votes, who polled 60,290 votes over 22 rounds of counting.
After his landslide victory, Rajendra Chavda expressed happiness and thanked the voters for electing him as he was surrounded by party workers and supporters.
“This is a victory of all voters. Party gave me a ticket after 40 years, and the public too made me victorious by a margin of almost 40,000 votes,” Chavda said. advertisement
The voting for the Visavadar and the Kadi Assembly seats of Gujarat was held on June 19. While Visavadar reported a turnout of 56.89%, Kadi saw a relatively lower figure at 57.90%.
In Kadi, the seat fell vacant after the death of BJP MLA Karsanbhai Solanki, following which the party fielded Rajendra Chavda, against Congress’s Ramesh Chavda, and AAP’s Jagdish Chavda. The contest was seen as an opportunity to guage the Dalit community’s voting patterns in the region.
A bypoll in Visavadar was necessitated after its sitting MLA Bhayani Bhupendrabhai resigned from the AAP and joined the BJP, who fielded Kirit Patel, while the Congress put up Nitin Ranpariya.
AAP had hoped its hopes on prominent party leader Gopal Italia, who lived up to the party’s billing and came out victorious with flying colours.