Jasdan (Gujarat): The voting for Jasdan by-poll in Gujarat, which is being seen as the ‘battle of prestige’ for both ruling BJP as well as main opposition Congress, ended peacefully today with an initial estimate of 72 to 75% polling.

Returning Officer Amit H Chaudhary today said that the final official figures are being compiled and would be released till late evening but as per the initial estimates it should be close to 75%.

Meanwhile Chief Election Officer of Gujarat S Murali Krishna said that as per initial estimates around 72% voting has taken place. He said that the polling was peaceful. Some complaints including the one about the BJP candidate’s voting related photo on social media were being investigated.

He said that the counting would be held on December 23 in Model school in Jasdan. It will begin at 8 am in the morning and would be held in 19 rounds.

Meanwhile, Chaudhary said, ‘The polling began at 9 am and by 4 pm the voter turnout was around 65% and in the last hour another around 10% voting was likely taking the final figure close to 75% as per initial estimates.’

He said that the polling ended peacefully and a few complaints from both the national parties were being verified.

‘There was not a single case of EVM related snag reported and VVPAT machines were changed at only 3 booths due to some technical issues,’ he informed.

He said that a total of 262 polling booths at 159 locations ie polling stations were set up for the polls. There were a total of 2,32,616 electorates of whom a little over one lakh were women. 72 booths at over 30 locations were marked as sensitive. Adequate security deployment was done for free, fair and peaceful conduct of the bypoll.

There are in all 8 candidates in the fray of whom the two main contestants were from the national parties BJP and Congress, 3 were from other registered parties and as many were independents.

BJP candidate and Gujarat Minister Kunvarji Bavaliya, a five time former MLA from this seat who was also Loksabha MP for one term, had resigned from the seat and Congress party on July 3 this year and joined the ruling party the same day. He was inducted as a minister also that day. He had alleged that Congress was ignoring senior leaders like him. The by-poll has been necessitated due to his resignation only. Congress has fielded Avsar Nakiya, who was mentored politically by Bavaliya.

Notably Jasdan is deemed as a bastion of Congress where the party had faced defeat only once. Bavaliya claims that it was because of him.
The by-poll is being seen as a war-of-prestige for both BJP and Congress. The counting of votes will be done on December 23.

Bavaliya and Nakiya both belong to majority Koli community on this seat in Rajkot district.

In the last election on December 9, 2017,Jasdan constituency had recorded a voter turnout of 73.44%. Kunvarji Bavaliya had won it as Congress candidate.

He had got 84321 (49.90%) votes defeating his nearest rival of BJP Bharat K Boghara who had got 75044 (44.41%) votes.

DeshGujarat