In a clean sweep, BJP has won all all eight Assembly in Guajarat seats where byelections were held. All these seats had been won by the Congress in 2017.
The byelections were necessitated by resignations of sitting legislators during the Rajya Sabha polls. Five out of eight legislators won again but from the BJP, which fielded the turncoats.
“The results of the byelections prove that the people of Gujarat don’t trust Congress,” Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said, describing the bypolls results as trailer before the assembly polls in 2022.
Gujarat BJP President C.R. Paatil said the results show that people of the State continue to repose their faith in the politics of development initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The seats where byelections were held are Dangs, Kaprada, Gadhada, Dhari, Morbi, Abdasa, Karjan and Limbadi. The five former legislators of Congress who were fielded by the BJP and won are Jitu Chaudhary from Kaprada, Akshay Patel from Karjan, JV Kakadia from Dhari, Brijesh Merja from Morbi and Pradhyumansinh Jadeja from Abdasa.
The three seats where the BJP fielded its own candidates are Limbadi, Gadhada and Dangs.
Former ministers Kiritsinh Rana and Atmaram Parmar won from Limbadi and Gadhada respectively while former MLA Vijay Patel took Dangs.
The results of the byelections would help Chief Minister Rupani to strengthen his position ahead of the local municipal and panchayat elections due in the next few months.
The local elections have been postponed in the view of the COVID-19 pandemic and are likely to be held after March 2021.
Meanwhile, the opposition Congress leaders accused the ruling party of misusing the government machinery to win the byelections. “We accept the verdict of the people but at the same time, we know how the State machinery was misused by the BJP to win the polls,” State Congress president Amit Chavda told media persons.
