When Bhavsinh Rathod’s name was declared by BJP as party’s Patan candidate, loyal-to-BJP-Gujarati-Middle-class was shocked. Bhavsinh had nothing to do with BJP. He had been in jail in decoity and drug trafficking cases. His son was arrested in fake currency case. Just to win Patan seat on cast lines BJP inducted Congress’s sitting MLA from Sami-Harij, Bhavsinh Rathod in the party and selected him as a candidate for Patan seat even before he left Congress. BJP’s Gandhinagar brigade decided Bhavsinh’s candidature without consulting Patan’s local cadres including MLAs, Minister and ex-Minister. None of the party workers had sought Bhavsinh as a candidate when Party’s team had visited Patan to take sense of local workers according to procedure. Bhavsinh was Gandhinagar’s choice, unacceptable to cadres and even BJP-class-voters seeing his background.

While deciding Bhavsinh’s candidature, Minister for Health in the Government of Gujarat, Jaynarayan Vyas whose Siddhpur assembly area falls under Patan Lok Sabha seat was not consulted. Jaynarayan remained inactive during campaign season and this reflected clearly in results. In Jaynarayan Vyas’s Sidhpur assembly segment Bhavsinh’s opponent candidate Congress’s Jagdish Thakor received margin of over 10,000 votes. Jagdish Thakor also got surplus votes in Vadgam, Kankrej and Patan town areas.

While Vadgam and Kankrej leads are understandable, as they are Congress bastions, Congress’s lead in Patan town must be shocking for the BJP. Patan town assembly area is represented by Modi’s closest person in cabinet, Revenue Minister Anandiben Patel. Result indicates that urban voters of Patan couldn’t digest Bhavsinh in BJP. Bhavsinh’s candidature was so shameful and disgusting choice on cast lines that even Jaynarayan and Anandiben couldn’t do much. In fact Anandiben was seen more active campaigning for LK Advani in areas around Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar. Bhavsinh enjoyed good margin in Chanasma and Radhanpur assembly segment but only thin surplus margin in Kheralu segment. Kheralu is a place where Sonia Gandhi and Narendra Modi both had addressed rallies.

After new delimitation, Unjha which was Patan Lok Sabha seat’s strongest BJP assembly segment, went to Mehsana Lok Sabha constituency, while Vadgam segment which was strong Congress bastion earlier in Sabarkantha constituency, merged into Patan seat. Jagdish Thakor got over 23000 lead in Vadgam. In BJP, Unjha’s absence was felt.

One of the biggest reason behind Bhavsinh’s defeat was Congress’s loyal Thakor vote bank which stood behind Congress’s Thakor candidate and not BJP’s. As Bhavsinh and Jagdish both were Thakor candidates, division in Thakor votes happened, and that happened in favor of Congress because traditionally Thakors are inclined towards Congress and this inclination didn’t change even after many attempts to woo Thakors by Narendra Modi before the elections. As both major candidates were Thakors, BJP’s non-Thakor voters, particularly Patel voters in Patan were somewhat not happy, and many of them didn’t vote. MahaGujarat Janata Party’s Patel candidate secured 18554 votes which helped Congress candidate to keep his margin high. As two major parties selected Thakor candidates, lots of other casts’ representatives stood in the election on their own and they got considerably well votes too.

Congress’s Jagdish Thakor has won Patan Lok Sabha election and would vacate his Dehgam assembly seat soon. Dehgam assembly segment is Thakor dominated but BJP’s Harin Pathak secured surplus votes there as his opponent Congress candidate was not Thakor.