Patidars reconcile with BJP in 2022 after a bump in 2017

Gandhinagar: Gujarat has seen Bhartiya Janta Party come to power for the 7th time after sweeping yesterday’s results of state assembly elections. A booming BJP has won 44 Patidar-dominated seats with Bhupendra Patel as its chief ministerial face. The party had lost 24 seats in the last assembly polls of 2017.

On 52 Patidar-dominated seats, the BJP won 44 seats while the AAP won four seats from the congress account, which now has 3 seats left and is down by 20 seats from the last polls in 2017 when it won 23 seats.

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After the results came tomorrow, BJP has now regained all the Patidar-dominated seats they had lost in 2017. While, Congress which had 23 seats in 2017, came down to three seats that are Lunvada, Manvdar, and Vijapur.

Interestingly, AAP won four such seats in its debut – Visavadar, Jamjodhpur, Botad, and Gariadhar. Bayad seat which also has a Patidar stronghold went to Dhavalsinh Zala who contested as an independent candidate.

The Patidars make up about 13 % of Gujarat’s population and have a decisive say in nearly 30 % of seats. Traditionally, Patidars used to side with BJP, but in aftermath of the quota agitation BJP came down to 28 seats in 2017 from the 36 seats it had in 2012.

DeshGujarat