BJP got fewer votes on 37 seats than in 2017
AHMEDABAD: The Bharatiya Janata Party has created history by winning 156 seats in Gujarat assembly elections, besides the party winning 52.50% of the vote share. This has officially and never happened before in the history of Gujarat, where the percentage of people who voted for BJP was greater than 50%.
But in 37 seats in Gujarat itself, the BJP candidate received fewer votes than 2017. Of these seats, the Congress party won nine and AAP two. Three were awarded to “others”. The BJP has suffered defeats in 14 of these 37 seats.
Out of these 37 seats, there are 19 seats in which Aam Aadmi Party candidates have lost their deposits. While in 11 seats BJP has faced defeat by more than 10,000 votes, The BJP has been defeated by 25,064 votes in the important Dhari assembly seat in Saurashtra. The BJP candidate on Dhanera seat of north Gujarat got 60,357 votes, the Congress got 38,260 votes while Aam Aadmi Party got only 1,130 votes while the victorious independent candidate got 96,053 votes.
Importantly, this time NOTA has played an important role in defeating BJP candidates on more than three seats. The BJP candidate Ashwin Kotwal has lost 1,664 votes from the KhedBrahma seat reserved for tribals in North Gujarat, where 7,331 votes were cast in NOTA. While BJP candidate Mansingh Parmar has lost in Somnath seat of Saurashtra by only 922 votes, 1,530 votes have been cast in NOTA. While in North Gujarat, senior BJP leader Dilip Thakore has also faced defeat due to NOTA. Dilip Thakor has lost the Chansma seat by 1,404 votes while 3,811 votes have been cast in NOTA here.
The highest number of NOTA votes was cast in Ahmedabad district while the lowest was cast in Dang district. A total of 3.13 crore voters voted in the Gujarat Legislative Assembly elections, out of which 1.67 crore voted for the BJP, which is an average of 52.50 per cent.