The results of the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation (GMC) elections held on Sunday came out on Tuesday, with the BJP winning a landslide victory of 41 seats out of a total of 44 seats. The Congress has had to settle for just two seats, while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won only one seat. This is the biggest victory for the BJP in the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation after 10 years. The Congress base here has declined, which seems to be directly benefiting the AAP. This is the reason why the AAP has managed to get 21.72% votes in the GMC elections.
In the GMC elections held in 2016, the Congress got the highest percentage of votes at 46.93%. However, what happened to the Congress in the elections five years later has never been thought of by its leaders. In the 2021 elections, the Congress got only 27.99% votes, which means a downfall of 18.94%, which has had a direct impact on Congress seats. The Congress won only two of the 44 seats here.
AAP contested the GMC elections for the first time, but it did not get the expected success. AAP’s single seat is really a consolation for the party, as the expected votes did not materialize. However, AAP’s vote share in its first GMC elections cannot be ignored. AAP managed to get 21.72% votes. In municipal corporation ward numbers 6, 8, 9 and 10 they got more votes than the Congress.
Compared to 2016, the BJP’s vote share in the GMC has increased by 1.63%, but in terms of seats, it has increased dramatically, showing that the BJP has benefited the most from the split between the Congress and AAP. The BJP did not get a majority in the previous two terms, but this time, in its 10-year history, the BJP won 93% of the total seats. The BJP resorted to the no-repeat theory. In Gandhinagar, all the elected candidates, including the mayor, were dropped and all new faces were fielded, so the workers were energised.
The BJP organization works with micro-planning. The BJP starts this work even before the election is declared, in which they get an idea of the profile and political affiliation of each voter family. There was also resentment against the old state government. Even before this election, the BJP formed a new government in place of the cabinet, including the Chief Minister, so anti-incumbency could be eliminated. Gandhinagar has a population of government employees. Just two hours before the election was declared, the state government announced an increase in their dearness allowance to appease the employees. The new demarcation benefited the BJP the most. The surrounding villages, which were dominated by the pro-BJP Patidar community, now became a part of the municipal corporation.