Gandhinagar/Ahmedabad:

On the day of counting of votes for February 4, elections in over 1100 gram panchayats in Gujarat, held on non-party basis, both ruling BJP and main opposition Congress made claims of over 70% of the seats having been bagged by their supported candidates.

Gram panchayat elections are contested without party symbol or banner. None of the candidates is considered party’s candidate.

BJP state general secretary K C Patel said that BJP supported candidates have won over 76% seats with 202 or majority of the Samras seats and 883 of those going for polls for Sarpanch posts.

Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi claimed that Congress supported candidates has won over 70% of the seats.
‘Congress had won the local body polls in rural areas two years ago and 80% seats of the assembly in rural areas during recent elections and now its supported candidates have won over 70% of the seats. Both our state president Bharatsinh Solanki and leader of opposition Paresh Dhanani have congratulated them,’ he said.

Meanwhile, a felicitation event of newly elected Sarpanchs organized by BJP at its headquarters at Koba near here today reportedly turned in to a fiasco of sorts with only a handful of such candidates turning up.

80.68% voting had taken place for the polls.

The state election commission which conducted it has yet not issued the compiled official list of the winning candidates.

DeshGujarat