Gujarat bypolls: The power of 1 for AAP, and backlash of 0 for Congress
How did your country report this? Share your view in the comments.
Diverging Reports Breakdown
Gujarat bypolls: The power of 1 for AAP, and backlash of 0 for Congress
Former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) state chief and party stalwart Gopal Italia won to make his debut in the state Assembly. Gujarat Congress president Shaktisinh Gohil resigned in the wake of another miserable performance by his party. Gopal won from Visavadar Assembly seat in Junagadh by 17,554 votes. The bypoll had been necessitated by the defection of AAP MLA Bhupendra Bhayani from the seat to the BJP after winning it in the 2022 Assembly elections. While the AAP increased its vote share from the Assembly polls, the Congress’s Nitin Ranpariya got just 5,501 votes. This is a second bypoll setback for the Congress after it lost Vav, considered its bastion, when its incumbent MLA Genen Thakor resigned to contest the Lok Sabha polls. The party retained the Kadi seat by a higher vote share (59.39%, compared to 53.45% in 2022), and took its seat tally to 163 in the Gujarat Assembly.
Gopal won from Visavadar Assembly seat in Junagadh by 17,554 votes. The bypoll had been necessitated by the defection of AAP MLA Bhupendra Bhayani from the seat to the BJP after winning it in the 2022 Assembly elections. While the AAP increased its vote share from the Assembly polls, the Congress’s Nitin Ranpariya got just 5,501 votes, with the party’s vote share plunging from 11.8% in the 2022 Assembly polls to 3.7%.
Advertisement
The second seat that saw a bypoll was the Scheduled Caste reserved seat of Kadi, which had fallen vacant due to the death of BJP MLA Karsan Solanki, and is a BJP bastion. The BJP won by more than 39,000 votes, the Congress was second, and the AAP a distant third at just 3,090 votes. While the Congress did not expect to win, its vote share here too went down, by some 4% compared to 2022.
AAP back to 5 MLAs, Gopal Italia in the House
The AAP is now back to five MLAs in the Gujarat Assembly, the same as it had after the 2022 polls. Plus, its vote share in Visavadar increased from 45.18% when it won the seat in 2022 to 51.04% now.
Four of the five AAP seats are now in Saurashtra – the others being Botad, Jamdjodhpur and Gariadhar. The party also holds Dediapada, an ST seat in Central Gujarat region.
Advertisement
More importantly, the AAP gets a voice like Italia, a former police constable and social activist, in the House, and the party hopes to build on this. Italia was a constable with the Gujarat Police, then a clerk with the state Secretariat, before plunging into politics with the Patidar quota agitation of 2015. He has remained in the spotlight since if, one time, for hurling a shoe at Pradipsinh Jadeja, a former Minister of State, Home, in protest against corruption, at other times, for storming into BJP headquarters in Gandhinagar while protesting against leaks in government recruitment exams. The latter had led to a brief jail term.
In 2022, he was detained by the Delhi Police for allegedly using derogatory language for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In the 2022 Assembly elections, Italia contested from the Katargam seat in Surat but lost.
BJP extends winning ways but Visavadar loss will sting
The party retained the Kadi seat by a higher vote share (59.39%, compared to 53.45% in 2022), and took its seat tally to 163 in the Gujarat Assembly out of a total of 182. Besides, two Independent MLAs have declared their loyalty to the party.
However, a third consecutive defeat from Visavadar – a seat that had been won by its former chief minister Kesubhai Patel thrice – will hurt the BJP. While in 2017, the Congress won from here, in 2022 and the bypoll, the AAP has defeated the ruling party.
The BJP had fielded Rajendrakumar Chavda from Kadi, while the Congress had gone with its former MLA from the seat, Ramesh Chavda.
Gohil resignation was perhaps a matter of time
The party’s unchecked decline in Gujarat continues, despite the Congress launching a much-publicised shake-up of its organisation from the state recently. This is a second bypoll setback for the Congress after it lost Vav, considered its bastion, when its incumbent MLA Geniben Thakor resigned to contest the Lok Sabha polls. She won, but the Congress lost when a bypoll was held for the Vav seat vacated by her.
It also comes on the back of the Congress’s dismal performance in the municipal elections in March, when it was able to form a board in only one of the 68 bodies.
Discontent had already been building against Gujarat PCC chief Shaktisinh Gohil over these losses, and the exit of five MLAs from the party since 2022. Former Leader of the Opposition Paresh Dhanani rubbed this in, while congratulating Gopal Italia, in a post on X. “The people of Visavadar have, in a very civil way, rejected the Congress.”