Gandhinagar| As the Gujarat assembly polls marched towards a landslide victory for the BJP that nearly wiped out the opposition, a key issue that came to the fore was whether AAP played the role of the villain for the Congress. As of 2.55 pm, the BJP has won 42 seats and is leading in 115, according to the Election Commission of India data. Congress has won three seats and is leading in 13 seats. Independents won three seats and SP is ahead in one seat.
At the time of writing the report, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel had got 1,98,272 votes, while the Congress candidate got 19,911 votes. Other BJP faces who won the election were Shankar Chowdhary and Kumar Kanani (Kanani defeated AAP leader Alpesh Kathiria). BJP’s Alpesh Thakor and Hardik Patel are leading in the counting of votes.
Congress’s Arjun Modhwadia defeated BJP’s Babu Bokhiria by 8,000 votes in the Porbandar seat. Congress candidate Chandrika Baria lost the election to BJP candidate Mahendrabhai Bhabhor. Bhabhor got 60,021 votes, while the Congress candidate got 32,965 votes and AAP candidate Shailesh Bhabhor got 28,574 votes.
Another Congress candidate, who fell victim to vote splitting by AAP and AIMIM, was Gyasuddin Shaikh, candidate from the Dariyapur constituency. He got 55,847 votes, while BJP candidate Kaushik Jain got 61,090 votes, AAP’s Taj Mohammed 4,164, and AIMIM candidate 1,771 votes.
