New Delhi: In the Gujarat bypolls to six assembly seats, the Congress has won the Radhanpur and Bayad seats where its MLAs, including OBC leader Alpesh Thakor, defected to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The party also won the Tharad assembly constituency.
The BJP won the other three seats — Lunawada, Kheralu and Amraiwadi.
Bypolls were necessitated in Radhanpur and Bayad segments due to defections of Congress MLAs Alpesh Thakor and Dhavalsinh Zala, respectively, to the ruling BJP.
Tharad, Lunawada, Kheralu and Amraiwadi saw bypolls after sitting BJP MLAs got elected to the Lok Sabha earlier this year.
The defector story
In the bypolls, Thakor lost to Desai Raghubhai Merajbhai of Congress. Thakor, who had been appointed national secretary of the party before the 2017 assembly elections, quit Congress in April ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
In Bayad, Thakor’s close aide Zala lost to the Congress’s Jashu Patel. Earlier in the day, Zala left the counting centre and accepted his defeat.
During the 2017 assembly elections in Gujarat, which has been the BJP’s bastion since 1998, the ruling party had faced stiff competition from the Congress. The BJP’s tally had dipped below 100 despite the Modi factor, with the Congress gaining ground and winning its highest number of seats in two decades.
Also read: Gujarat Congress sidelining my people, high command doing nothing: Alpesh Thakor
‘Tight slap’
“This is a tight slap for those who after winning the seat on Congress ticket went to BJP. People have given them their verdict,” Gujarat Congress chief spokesperson Manish Doshi told ThePrint.
“The two candidates who defected and joined the BJP have lost, and we were able to win Tharad which was with the BJP so far. It is a big win for us and shows the failure of the BJP government and the fact that real issues have to be addressed.”
Doshi added that the party lost Amrawaidi seat by “only” 2,000 votes.
ThePrint reached BJP spokesperson Bharat Pandya for comment but there was no response until the time of publishing this report.
However, a senior BJP leader said there was a clear distinction between assembly and Lok Sabha elections and the results are a reflection on the individual candidates.
The Congress’s tally in the Gujarat assembly now stands at 72 while the BJP is at 103, said Doshi.
Also read: ‘Outsiders’ are joining BJP & not everyone in the party is happy
Defectors are paying a price for betraying the trust reposed by voters who vote for the party the candidate represents. BJP needs to learn lesson that defectors always do not win election.