Gandhinagar: Polling for the Vav assembly by-polls in Gujarat will take place on November 13th. This seat became vacant after then-Congress MLA Geniben Thakor resigned from the State Assembly after winning the Banaskantha Lok Sabha seat in the 2024 general elections. Available data suggests that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has performed significantly better than the main opposition party, Congress, in past by-elections.

Over the last 15 years (post-delimitation), there have been by-polls on 59 state assembly seats for various reasons. Of those, the BJP won 47 seats, while the Congress party managed to secure only 12.

In 2009, Congress MLA Bhavsinh Rathod resigned from the State Assembly and left the Congress party. He contested the by-poll on the same Sami Harij assembly seat as a BJP candidate and was re-elected. In the same year, six assembly seats—Danta, Dehgam, Chotila, Jasdan, Dhorji, and Kodinar—also went to by-polls following the Lok Sabha polls. Out of these six, the BJP won four seats, while Congress managed to retain only two.

In 2010, BJP MLA from Chotila, Vashram Khorani, died, leaving the seat vacant. The ruling party nominated his son, Bharat Khorani, for the by-polls, and he emerged victorious.

In 2011, the sitting MLA from the then-Khadia seat (now Jamalpur-Khadia), Ashok Bhatt, passed away, leading to by-polls. The BJP nominated his son, Bhushan Bhatt, who won the elections.

In 2012, the Mansa seat became vacant after the death of BJP MLA Mangaldasbhai Patel. In the by-polls, BJP candidate D.D. Patel lost to Congress candidate Babusinh Thakor by a margin of 8,188 votes.

In 2013, Jetpur MLA Jayesh Radadiya resigned from the State Assembly and the Congress party. He later joined the BJP and contested the by-poll on a BJP ticket, winning re-election. By-polls were also held in Surat-West, Morva Hadaf, Limdi, and Dhoraji, with the BJP winning all these seats.

In 2014, Congress MLAs Chhabil Patel, Jasha Barad, Rajendrasinh Chavda, and Bavku Undhad resigned and joined the BJP. They contested by-polls on the same seats: Abdasa, Somnath, Himmatnagar, and Lathi, respectively. All except Chhabil Patel, who lost by a margin of 750 votes, won as BJP candidates.

Other seats that went to polls in the 2014 by-elections alongside the Lok Sabha general elections included Mandvi (ST), where INC MLA Prabhu Vasava resigned to join the BJP and was elected to the Lok Sabha. The BJP lost this seat. A BJP MLA from Rapar died of cardiac arrest, leading to by-polls, which the party won. Another seat, Rajkot West, went to by-polls after MLA Vaju Vala resigned and became governor. The BJP fielded Vijay Rupani as a candidate, who emerged victorious. Meanwhile, after the resignation of BJP MLA Keshubhai from the Visavadar seat, the party gave a ticket to his son Bharat, but he lost the seat to Congress.

Another round of by-polls was held in Gujarat in 2024, following the Lok Sabha polls, for nine seats: Deesa, Khambhalia, Mangrol, Talaja, Anand, Matar, Limkheda, Tankara, and Maninagar. Of these, the BJP won six seats while Congress secured three—Deesa, Khambhalia, and Mangrol—vacated by BJP MLAs who went to the Lok Sabha.

In 2016, BJP MLA from Choryashi, Rajendra Patel, died, leading to by-polls where his daughter, Zankhana Patel, contested on a BJP ticket and retained the seat for the party. That same year, in Talala, the sitting MLA from the Congress party, Jashu Barad, passed away, necessitating by-polls in which Jashu’s brother, Bhagwan Barad, won on a BJP ticket.

In 2018, Congress MLA Kunvarji Bavaliya resigned and joined the BJP. He contested the by-poll on the same Jasdan seat as a BJP candidate and won.

In the 2019 by-polls for Unjha, Dhrangadhra, and Manavadar assembly seats, Asha Patel, Parshottam Sabariya, and Jawahar Chavda won as BJP candidates after leaving Congress and resigning from the State Assembly, which led to these by-polls.

However, then-Congress MLAs Alpesh Thakor and Dhavalsinh Zala resigned from the Congress party and their membership in the State Assembly. They contested the by-polls as BJP candidates, but on the Bayad seat, Dhavalsinh Jhala lost by a margin of 700 votes, and Alpesh Thakor lost by a margin of 3,807 votes in the Radhanpur seat.

In the cases of Lunawada, Tharad, Amraiwadi, and Kheralu, the sitting MLAs went to the Lok Sabha, and barring Tharad, BJP candidates won all the other three seats in the by-polls held within six months of the Lok Sabha elections.

In 2020, eight Congress MLAs resigned from the State Assembly, resulting in assembly by-polls. When the results came in, the BJP won all eight seats. In those elections, the BJP fielded five former Congress MLAs as its candidates in Abdasa, Morbi, Dhari, Karjan, and Kaprada, and all were victorious. Meanwhile, in Limbdi, Gadhada, and Dang, the BJP fielded its own candidates, who also emerged victorious.

In 2021, Morva Hadaf went to by-poll, and BJP’s Nimisha Suthar won.

In 2024, five assembly seats went to by-polls alongside the general elections for the Lok Sabha. The sitting Congress MLAs C.J. Chavda, Arjun Modhwadia, Arvind Ladani, and Chirag Patel resigned from the Vijapur, Porbandar, Manavadar, and Khambhat assembly seats, respectively. Independent MLA from the Vaghodia seat, Dharmendrasinh Vaghela, also resigned. All of them joined the BJP and contested in the by-polls, emerging victorious.

After analyzing the data on all these by-polls in the last 15 years post-new delimitation, which were caused by resignations of Congress MLAs, deaths of sitting MLAs, or elections of MLAs to the Lok Sabha, the BJP has won 47 out of 59, resulting in a success ratio of 79.66 percent.