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Congress Routed
The Bharatiya Janata Party registered a historic victory in the Gujarat Assembly elections as it won 156 seats in the 182 member House. The opposition Congress party was decimated as its tally went below 20, while the Aam Aadmi Party, a new entrant in Gujarat politics, won five seats. The polls were held in two phases on December 1 and 5 across 33 districts of the BJP ruled state. A total 70 political outfits and 624 independents were in the fray. In the 2017 Assembly polls, BJP won 99 seats and Congress 77 seats, while two seats went to BTP, one to NCP, and three to independents
Riding on a pro-incumbency wave despite ruling the State for 27 long years, the BJP delivered its best ever performance in Gujarat on 08 December, 2022 by storming back to power for the seventh straight time bagging 156 of the 182 Assembly seats and garnering 52.5 per cent of the votes. This time the ruling BJP also surpassed its earlier record of 127 seats which it won under Shri Narendra Modi as Chief Minister in 2002.
In a stupendous performance, the BJP restricted its main opponents, the Congress, to it’s worst ever tally of 17 seats and the AAP with only five seats as against its tall claims of forming the Government. At 27.3 per cent, the vote share of the Congress, which had bagged 149 seats in 1985, is almost half of BJP while the AAP cornered 12.9 per cent. But even put together, their vote share does not surpass that of the BJP’s, reflecting the enormity of the BJP’s landslide win.
Congratulating the Karyakartas and voters after the election results Shri Narendra Modi said, “I am overcome with a lot of emotions seeing the phenomenal election results. People blessed politics of development and at the same time expressed a desire that they want this momentum to continue at a greater pace. I bow to Gujarat’s Jan Shakti”.
Gujarat CM Shri Bhupendra Patel, who will take oath on December 12 as the new Chief Minister, cornered over 83 per cent of the vote share in his Ghatlodia constituency winning the seat by a margin of about 1.92 lakh votes. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, BJP National President Shri JP Nadda and other senior leaders will participate in the oath-taking ceremony.
Bags over 50 per cent votes
The huge victory of the BJP is electorally significant as bagging over 50 percentage votes is rare in State polls. The seventh consecutive and emphatic win of BJP in Gujarat also multiplied the strength of the party in the State and sent a clear message about the popularity of the party in the country.
The results revealed that the BJP has won back the entire Patidar voter base, a majority of the State’s rural, tribal and OBC seats, and has done reasonably well even in minority-dominated seats in the State. Shri Narendra Modi led BJP this time round, not only reversed the trend of falling seats of the BJP since 2012 elections but reduced the Congress and AAP to the margin of Gujarat politics.
It is Noteworthy, that BJP’s vote share substantially improved in compare to the earlier assembly elections. The pro-incumbency wave in Gujarat swept away the opposition and rebel candidates of the BJP who could not make even a marginal impact on the victory margins of BJP candidates in any part of the state.
Miserable show for the Congress
It is a miserable show for the Congress which in 1985 under the leadership of Madhavsinh Solanki had won a record 149 of the total 182 seats in the State Assembly. In the last Assembly elections of 2017 itself, the Congress had 77 seats and vote share of 41.5 per cent as against BJP’s 99 seats and 49.1 per cent vote share.