The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from Gir Somnath, Mansingh Parmar, has exuded confidence in winning all four seats in the constituency, which the party had lost to Congress in the 2017 elections.
In the Gir Somnath district of Gujarat or Saurashtra, caste has historically played a significant role in politics, which is one of the theories as to why Congress is said to have won all four of these constituencies in the 2017 Assembly elections.
With an aim to counter this factor, this time around, the BJP has given tickets to candidates on a caste basis, targeting all castes. Speaking to the media on Monday, Parmar said, “We have faith in our party workers. We will win in Somnath. The party had not kept the community factor in mind the last time, which is why we lost here. But this time, this factor has been taken care of. The party has given tickets to the right candidate.”
Parmar, a member of the Rajput community, responded that the party will succeed in the district if it unites all the communities spread across the constituencies when asked about the predominance of caste in the area.
“It is not that the community factor has been dominant. There are mostly OBCs in Somnath. People from every community live here. So they feel that there should be representation from their community. There are four assembly constituencies in Gir Somnath: Karadiya Rajput, Ahir, OBC, and Koli. If we take all of them together, we will win,” he said.
Parmar stated that “AAP’s freebies would not work” in Gujarat when referring to the Aam Aadmi Party, which is also running and is hoping to gain ground in the state.
“AAP has come this time. Last time, other parties had also come. Various parties keep coming, but it does not have any impact. AAP’s freebie would not work here. This is the people of Gujarat who have seen the development done in the past 30 years,” he said.
“All four seats will be in the BJP’s bag.” “We are confident,” he added.
The Patidar factor also had an impact the last time because this factor is dominant in the Una and Talala constituencies. There are nearly 2,62,000 voters in Somnath,” he said.
In the 1990s, BJP veteran LK Advani led the Rath Yatra through Somnath. Somnath was crucial in helping the BJP form Gujarat’s government. On the other side, in Somnath, the BJP took three of the four assembly seats in 2007.
In Somnath, the BJP’s graph started steadily declining. The BJP only succeeded in winning one of the four seats in the 2012 elections. The Congress won all four seats in Somnath in 2017, while the BJP lost all four.
Elections for the Assembly will take place on December 1 and 5, and the results will be tallied on December 8.