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Friday, May 14, 2004

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National

Gujarat: victory beyond expectations

By Manas Dasgupta

GANDHINAGAR, MAY 13. The Congress claimed 12 of the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat, snatching seven seats from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

The outcome proved the poll pundits wrong and it also went beyond the expectations of the die-hard Congress leaders and supporters who, before the counting of votes began, hesitatingly claimed that they would win eight to 10 seats.

The results have shown almost a clear urban-rural divide with most of the urban seats, including Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Vadodara, Bhavnagar, Surat and Rajkot, going the BJP way and the rural seats to the Congress, perhaps reflecting the anger of the farmers against the Modi Government for the hike in the power tariff rates.

It was a near total reversal of the outcome of the December 2002 Assembly elections in which the Congress was totally wiped out in its traditional strongholds of central and south Gujarat with the tribal voters opting for the BJP under the impact of the communal riots in which they played an active role.

Barring Dohad, where the Congress lost by a mere 312 votes and has demanded a re-count, it re-claimed all the other tribal-dominated seats in south and central Gujarat which had overwhelmingly voted for the BJP in the Assembly elections.

Even in the Saurashtra region, where the Congress had only a token presence, the party has snatched three of the seven seats, including Junagadh, represented by the Union Minister of State for Tourism, Bhavnaben Chikhaliya, and has only narrowly missed Porbandar, while losing the Surendranagar seat to the BJP.

Advani, Rana retain seats

Barring, Ms Chikhaliya, all the other Union Ministers from Gujarat, including the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani(Gandhinagar), the Rural Development Minister, Kashiram Rana (Surat), the Minister of State for Home, Harin Pathak (Ahmedabad), and the Minister of State for Health, Vallabh Kathiriya (Rajkot) retained their seats. Notable among the Congress victors are the former PCC president, Shankarsinh Waghela, who retained the Kapadvanj seat with a margin of over 79,000 votes and four sitting members of the Assembly winning the Anand, Jamnagar, Mandvi and Bulsar seats which would necessitate byelections. Besides retaining Kapadvanj, Sabarkantha and Kaira, which the Congress held in the dissolved Lok Sabha, the party wrested Jamnagar, Junagadh and Amreli from the BJP in the Saurashtra region and won Mehsana and Banaskantha in north Gujarat, Anand and Chhota-Udepur in central and Mandvi and Bulsar in south Gujarat regions.

At least in four constituencies — Jamnagar, Porbandar, Dahod and Vadodara — the Congress lost by less than 8,000 votes which could have seen a reversed trend but for a host of local factors including the protest against the selection of candidates.

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