Counting of votes in Gujarat, the home state of PM Modi, begins amid tight 3 layered security, Fate of 371 candidates including Amit Shah to be decided

Gandhinagar:

Counting of votes for all the 26 Loksabha seats in Gujarat, the home state of PM Narendra Modi, started amid tight three level security at 8 am today.

A senior official of the Chief Electoral Officer’s office here today said that the official declaration of results would be slightly delayed this time around due to the provision of matching of VVPAT slips of 5 EVMs in each assembly segment of every loksabha seats. He said that at the layer one at each center ie closest to it, Central Para Military forces were deployed. Outer two layers are being protected by the state police.

Apart from the LS seats counting of votes for 4 assembly segments where by-polls were held simultaneously on April 23 in the third phase of the seven phased Loksabha election, is also being held. A total of 28 counting centers have been made for it.

Fate of a total of 371 LS candidates including BJP president and party candidate from Gandhinagar Amit Shah, 4 former union ministers, an incumbent minister of Gujarat and eight sitting MLAs of Gujarat including the leader of Opposition in the state assembly is to be decided in Gujarat, a known bastion of BJP where the ruling party had won all 26 seats in the last general election in 2014.

The polling percentage this time was record all time high 64.11. It was 64.7%.

The fight is expected to be tough on some of the erstwhile traditional Congress seats in the state including Banskantha, Anand, Patan, Surendranagar, Bardoli, Chhota Udepur, Junagadh and Amreli.

Among the four former ministers contesting the polls are Bharatsinh Solanki (Congress, Anand seat), Tushar Chaudhary (Congress, Bardoli-ST), Mansukh Vasava (BJP, Bharuch) and Mohan Kundariya (BJP, Rajkot). Water Resources minister of Gujarat Parbat Patel is BJP candidate in Banaskantha.
Congress has also fielded 8 of its MLAs including Leader of Opposition Paresh Dhanani (Amreli) in the fray.

Polling on all the 26 Loksabha seats of Gujarat and 4 assembly segments by-poll was held simultaneously due to resignation of as many Congress MLAs .

Chief Electoral Officer S Murali Krishna said there are a total 371 candidates for LS polls in Gujarat and for assembly by-polls a total 45 candidates have remained in the final fray, Krishna said.
Among LS seats maximum 31 candidate were on Surendranagar seat while minimum 6 were on Panchmahal seat. For assembly by polls necessitated due to resignation of 4 Congress MLAs, Manavadar seat has minimum 8 candidates and maximum 15 on Jamnagar-rural seat. On the remaining two seats of Dhranadhra and Unjha and equal number of 11 candidates have remained in the fray finally.
All the 26 seats were won by BJP in the last election.

Apart from Amit Shah, the other prominent faces in the LS election are 4 former union ministers Bharatsinh Solanki (Congress, Anand seat), Tushar Chaudhary (Congress, Bardoli), Mansukh Vasava (BJP, Bharuch) and Mohan Kundariya (BJP, Rajkot) and current minister of Gujarat Parbat Patel (BJP, Banaskantha).
Congress has fielded 8 of its MLAs including Leader of Opposition Paresh Dhanani in the fray.
Amreli MLA Dhanani is contesting on Amreli Lok Sabha seat, Kaprada MLA Jitu Chaudhary on Valsad, Una MLA Punjabhai Vansh on Junagadh, Dhoraji MLA Lalit Vasoya on Porbandar, Tankara MLA Lalit Kagathara on Rajkot, Modasa MLA Rajendrasinh Thakor on Sabarkantha and 79-year old Limbi MLA Somabhai Gandabhai Patel on Surendranagar seat. Congress MLA from Gandhinagar North seat C J Chavda has been made party candidate against BJP president Amit Shah on Gandhingar seat.
Somabhai had won four Lok Sabha polls – thrice on a BJP ticket and once in 2009 on a Congress ticket – and two Assembly elections from Limbdi in 2012 and 2017.

The contest in Gujarat like earlier times is likely to be mainly between BJP and Congress.
BJP had given tickets to six women candidates Shardaben Patel (Mahesana), Sitting MP Poonam Madam (Jamnagar), Sitting MP Bhartiben Shiyal (Bhavnagar), Sitting MP Ranjanben Bhatt (Vadodara), Gitaben Rahtwa (Chhota Udepur) and Sitting MP Darshana Jardosh (Surat) while Congress has given ticket to just one woman candidate Geetaben Patel on Ahmedabad-East seat.

So far as Muslim candidates were concerned Congress has fielded just one Sher Khan Pathan from Bharuch seat while BJP has given ticket to none.

The 26 LS constituencies in Gujarat are – Kutch (SC)-10, Banaskantha- 14, Gandhinagar- 17, Patan-12, Mahesana – 12, Sabarkantha- 20, Ahmedabad-East – 26,Ahmedabad-West (SC)- 13 , Rajkot-10, Porbandar-17, Jamnagar-28,Junagadh-12, Amreli-12, Bhavnagar-10,Anand- 10, Kheda -7, Dahod (ST) -7, Vadodara-13, Chhota Udepur(ST)-8, Bharuch-17, Bardoli(ST)-12, Surat 13, Navasari-25, Valsad(ST)-9