Gandhinagar (The Hawk): Bhupendra Patel, the chief minister of Gujarat, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is poised to win a record number of votes in the Gujarat Assembly elections and take back power for a record seventh straight term. On Thursday, he defeated his nearest Congress opponent by nearly 2 lakh votes in the Ghatlodia Assembly constituency in the Ahmedabad district.
Amee Yajnik of Congress came in second place with 21,120 votes, much behind Patel's 2,12,480 votes.
Rivaba Jadeja, the wife of Indian cricketer Ravindra Jadeja, made a spectacular political debut in Jamnagar North by defeating Karshanbhai Karmur of the AAP by about 60,000 votes.
Alpesh Thakor, an OBC politician, won Gandhinagar by a margin of 43,322 votes. Hardik Patel won Viramgam by a margin of 56,215 votes. Senior leader Yogesh Patel won Manjalpur by a margin of 1,00,754 votes.
The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), which is led by Asaduddin Owaisi, fielded candidates, however, failed terribly this election. AIMIM's Sundhiya Kalpeshkumar received 1,832 votes in Vadgam as of the time of submitting this report, placing third behind Jignesh Mevani of the Congress (78,845) and Manibhai Vaghela of the BJP (75,005).
In Ahmedabad's Jamalpur Khadia Assembly constituency, where Imran Khedawala of the Congress won by 13,658 votes over Bhusan Bhatt of the BJP, AIMIM candidate Sabir Kabliwala received 15,655 votes.
Shailesh Manubhai Parmar of the Congress defeated Nareshbhai Vyas of the BJP in Danilimda by a margin of 13,487 votes, while Dilipbhai Parmar of the AIMIM was only able to secure 2,434 votes.
Similar results occurred in Godhra, where C.K. Raulji of the BJP defeated Dushyantsinh Chauhan of the Congress by 35.198 votes, with Hasan Shabbir Kachaba of AIMIM coming in fourth place with 9,508 votes.
(Inputs from Agencies)
