BJP’s bypoll sweep makes its Gujarat fortress impregnable

In the 2017 Gujarat Assembly elections, the BJP came to power with 99 seats, and now after three years, the party has 111 seats.

Out of these, 9 are parachute MLAs, who have left the Congress and joined the BJP and reached the Assembly by winning the by-elections. While 3 MLAs have reached the Legislative Assembly by contesting the by-elections in the vacant seats after the Congress MLAs resigned.

A bypoll was held in 2018 for the Jasdan seat in the same year as the 2017 Assembly elections. In this seat, Kunwarji Bawaliya, who came to BJP from Congress, contested and won. Against him was Avasharbhai Nakia of Congress. Kunwarji Bawaliya reached the Assembly by winning the election with 19,985 votes. Thus, in 2018, the BJP’s strength in the Assembly increased from 99 to 100.

In the 2019 by-elections, the BJP fielded parachute candidates from the Congress in Unjha, Dhrangadhra, Jamnagar Rural and Manavadar. At the same time, the BJP won three seats and increased its tally to 103.

In 2020, 8 Congress MLAs resigned. By-elections were held on 3 November in these seats in which BJP fielded defectors in 5 seats and BJP candidates in 3 seats. BJP candidates have won all these 8 seats. With this, the total strength of BJP in the Assembly has reached 111.

C.R. Patil (67), president of the Gujarat unit of the ruling BJP, has proved himself by winning all the eight seats in the bypolls. The party will now go to the next Assembly elections in December 2022 under his leadership. Patil can help the party in winning the 2022 elections and his new team will be announced in a week.

Preparations for the 2022 Assembly elections will begin with the formation of the first organisation in which the members of Patil’s team will be fielded directly with the target of 2022. Not only this, the performance of the team will also be decided from now on.