Gandhinagar:

A total of 977 candidate including CM Vijay Rupani, BJP president Jeetu Vaghani and big Congress leaders like Shaktisinh Gohil and Arjun Modhwadia will be in the fray for the first phase of Gujarat assembly election to be held in 89 constituencies of 19 districts in Kutch-Saurashtra and Southern regions of the western state.

Additional Chief Electoral Officer of Gujarat A H Manek today said that a total of 1703 candidates had filed nominations for this phase from November 14 to 21 of which 423 were rejected during scrutiny on November 22 while 303 had withdrawn names till the last date for doing so yesterday.

Now a total of 977 candidates will be in the fray of which the largest number was still that of independents. BJP which was in power in the state for last 22 years and the main opposition Congress have both fielded 89 candidates each for the first phase.
Among the prominent figures were CM Rupani from Rajkot west seat who would lock horns with billionaire Congress candidate Indranil Rajyaguru. Vaghani would contest from his seat Bhavnagar west. Gohil being dubbed as the undeclared CM candidate for the opposition would contest from Mandvi seat in Kutch while Modhwadia would face BJP candidate and minister Babu Bokhiriya on Porbandar seat.

Notably in the first phase of the total 182 constituencies, 89 of 19 districts from Saurashtra-Kutch and South Gujarat regions (Kutch, Surendranagar, Rajkot, Morbi, Jamnagar, Devbhomi-Dwarka, Porbandar, Gir-Somnath, Junagadh, Amreli, Bhavnagar, Botad, Narmada, Bharuch, Surat, Tapi, Navsari, Valsad, and Dangs ) will go to polls.

In the second phase on December 14, 93 constituencies of remaining 14 districts of North and Central Gujarat (Ahmedabad, Banaskantha, Patan, Mahesana, Sabarkantha, Aravlalli, Gandhinagar, Anand, Kheda, Mahisagar, Panchmahal, Dahod, Vadodara and Chota Udepur) will go to polls. Counting will he held on December 18.

DeshGujarat