Gandhinagar: Ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has won all 8 seats that went for by-election on November 3.

Party candidate Pradhyumansinh Jadeja has won Abdasa assembly by-poll in Kutch district by a margin of 36,778 votes against nearest rival Congress candidate Dr. Shantilal Senghani. Abdasa seat has a history of not electing same MLA again. Jadeja has broken this trend. A BJP leader of taluka level in the past, Jadeja contested year 2017 general elections of Gujarat Assembly as Congress candidate and won. Ahead of Rajya Sabha election this year, he resigned from the State assembly and later joined BJP. A Muslim independent candidate Hanif Padhiyar today at one point went ahead of Congress candidate during counting. However he has stood third at the end of the counting. Even if his votes are added to Congress candidate’s votes, the total is not as big as the votes achieved by Pradyumansinh.

BJP candidate Kiritsinh Rana has won Limbdi assembly seat. Kiritsinh is old player here and he has represented this seat in the past too. He defeated Congress candidate Chetan Khachar by a margin of 32,050 votes. By-poll in Limbdi was necessitated as then existing MLA Soma Ganda Patel resigned from the State assembly.

BJP’s Brijesh Merja who left membership of State assembly and also resigned from Congress to join BJP and contest by-poll won against Congress candidate Jayantilal Patel in Morbi. Jayantilal today lost Morbi seat for 6th time. However Merja’s victory was not smooth. There were ups and down throughout the counting. This is another seat where significant number of Muslims voted for independent and other Muslim candidates.

BJP candidate JV Kakadiya has won against Congress candidate Suresh Kotadiya on Dhari seat by a margin of 17,209 votes. Kotadiya had resigned as MLA of Dhari seat early this year ahead of Rajya Sabha election and joined BJP later. A candidate fielded against him in this Patidar bastion is based in Surat.

Surat based BJP candidate Atmaram Parmar has won against rival Congress candidate Mohanbhai Solanki by a margin of 23,295 votes in Gadhda seat which is reserved for Schedule Caste.

BJP candidate Vijay Patel has surprised Gujarat by winning tribal populated Dang seat reserved for Scheduled Tribe by an unprecedented margin of over 60,000 votes. Turnout in Dang in this by-poll was higher than even general election of 2017. Congress had fielded Christian tribal candidate against Vijay Patel looking at huge number of converted Christian population in Dang. However Vijay Patel has received from all section. Vijay Patel has been MLA of Dang in the past too. The seat went vacant as then sitting Congress MLA resigned ahead of Rajya Sabha election this year. Outgoing then Congress MLA has joined BJP.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Emdq_MfVcAMiAro?format=jpg

Jitubhai Chaudhari of BJP has won Kaprada seat, reserved for tribal candidates by a margin of over 47,000 votes. Jitubhai resigned from Congress and from the State assembly ahead of Rajya Sabha election early this year.