AHMEDABAD: Most political parties have announced their candidates for Saurastras’s Morbi seat in Gujarat Assembly elections, but none of them has started campaigning in Morbi, where 136 people died on October 30 in a bridge collapse.
Monday is the last day to file the nomination papers. The collapse of the 19th-century suspension bridge triggered a political storm with the Opposition targeting the ruling BJP over the tragedy.
The Congress has released a charge sheet against the BJP while AAP has alleged corruption in the repair of the bridge before it collapsed. “How will they campaign? Most discussions at the city’s meeting points like Nehru Gate Chowk, Green Chowk, Bapasitaram Chowk, paan and tea shops veer around the tragedy. A vote seeker would only receive people’s wrath,” said Vipul Prajapati, a Morbi resident.
Surprisingly, candidates have let it be known that they would not carry a boisterous group of supporters to the poll panel office to file their nomination papers.
“This is the tragedy effect,” said Vipul. Another resident Dilip Barasra said there was a pro-BJP atmosphere before the tragedy. However, it appears BJP and other parties are afraid of the people’s anger,” says Barasra.
He adds that it is widely believed in the town that the tragedy forced the BJP to replace its sitting MLA Brijesh Merja with former MLA, Kanti Amritiya. Amritiya had jumped into the river wearing a life jacket to save the victims of the bridge collapse.
Kanti Amrutiya says the people of the town support him because of his work community work.
Brijesh Merja, on the other hand, had contested from the Morbi seat on the Congress ticket in the 2017 election and had defeated Amrutiya, an MLA for five terms since 1995. Merja then switched sides and won the seat on the BJP ticket in the 2020 by-election.
“The Morbi assembly seat has been a saffron stronghold for years. In 2017, the BJP candidate lost by less than 5,000 votes following the Patidar reservation movement and anti-incumbency,” said Rajesh Ambliya, a local resident.
Currently, the BJP is ruling the Morbi municipality, district panchayat, and taluka panchayat.
The Morbi Assembly seat falls under the Kutch Lok Sabha constituency, represented by BJP MP Vinod Chavda.
The BJP’s five-term MLA Kantilal Amrutiya, better known as Kanabhai, had won from the Morbi Assembly seat in 1995, 1998, 2002, 2007 and 2012.
In 2017, Congress candidate Brijesh Merja had defeated Kantilal Amrutiya by a thin margin of 3,419 votes, riding on the anti-BJP wave in Morbi, one of the key centers of the Patidar quota agitation.
Morbi has nearly 2.90 lakh voters, including 80,000 Patidars, 35,000 Muslims, 30,000 Dalits, 30,000 Sathwara community members (from the Other Backward Class category), 12,000 Ahirs (OBC), and 20,000 Thakor-Koli community members (OBC).