Five Congress turncoats in BJP’s list for Assembly bypolls in Gujarat

The seven party candidates are: Pradhyumansinh Jadeja for Abdasa, Brijesh Merja for Morbi, J V Kakadiya for Dhari, Atmaram Parmar for Gadhada, Akshay Patel for Karjan, Vijay Patel for Dangs and Jitubhai Chaudhary for Kaprada. Gadhada constituency is reserved for Schedule Caste communities whereas, Kaprada and Dangs are reserved for Schedule Tribe communities.

The BJP is yet to declare a candidate for Limbdi.

In the 2017 Assembly elections, the five Congress turncoats whom BJP has mandated to fight the bypolls as its candidates had defeated the saffron party’s candidates.

Pradhymansinh Jadeja had defeated BJP’s Chhabil Patel by 9,746 votes in Abdasa constituency. Brijesh Merja had defeated BJP’s Kanti Amrutiya by 3,419 votes in Morbi constituency. J V Kakadiya had defeated BJP veteran Dilip Sanghani by 15,336 votes in Dhari constituency. In Karjan constituency, Akshay Patel had defeated BJP’s Satish Patel by 3,564 votes.

Whereas, in the Kaprada seat, Jitu Chaudhary had defeated BJP’s Madhubhai Raut by a slander margin of 170 votes.

For the other two seats, Dangs and Gadhada, BJP has fielded its candidates – Vijay Patel and Atmaram Parmar – who had lost to Congress candidates in 2017.

Vijay Patel had lost to Congress’s Mangal Gavit by 768 votes on Dangs constituency. Vijay was elected to Assembly in 2007 as a BJP candidate. However, he had lost to Gavit in the 2012 Assembly polls as well.

Atmaram Parmar, former minister in Gujarat and one of party’s prominent Dalit leaders, had lost to Congress’s Pravin Maru on Gadhada constituency by 9,424 votes.

Interestingly, both Gavit and Maru also resigned as Congerss MLAs, but have not joined BJP formally.

The Limbdi constituency had fallen vacant following resignation of Congress MLA Somabhai Patel. Patel has formally not joined BJP.

In 2017, Patel had defeated BJP’s Kiritsinh Rana by 14,651 votes. Party sources say that both Patel and Rana are lobbying to get the party mandate to fight the bypoll from Limbdi.

The last date to file nominations is October 16 and the deadline to withdraw nominations is October 19. With voting on November 3, counting of votes will be held on November 10.