Defeat of Isudan Gadhvi
– Photo: Amar Ujala
Expansion
The results of the Gujarat assembly elections are out. This time the Bharatiya Janata Party has created a new record. In Gujarat, which has 182 assembly seats, 156 BJP candidates won the elections. The Congress suffered the most. The Congress came straight down to 17 from 77 seats. Means Congress had to bear the loss of 60 seats. At the same time, this time only five candidates of the Aam Aadmi Party, which claimed to form the government, could win the elections. The SP candidate won one seat, while the remaining three seats were won by independent candidates.
Aam Aadmi Party’s chief ministerial candidate Isudan Gadhvi was in the fray for Khambhalia assembly seat in Devbhoomi Dwarka district. Talking about the result of this election, Mulu Bhai of BJP defeated Isudan Gadhvi of AAP by 18,745 votes. BJP candidate got 77,834 votes while AAP got 59,089 votes here. The third number was Congress. Its candidate Vikrambhai Arjanbhai Madam got 44.715 votes, which was 23.53 percent of the total votes. Madam had earlier won here on Congress ticket twice in a row. The deposits of eight candidates including BSP and AIMIM candidates were forfeited. Whereas, NOTA got 2.582 votes.
Congress got victory in 2017
The Congress had won the Khambhalia seat in the 2017 assembly elections. In this election, the Congress had made Vikrambhai Arjanbhai Madam its candidate from this seat. He defeated Kalubhai Chavda of BJP by 11,000 votes. A total of 20 candidates were in the fray here. Apart from these two, the deposits of the remaining 18 candidates were forfeited. Earlier, in the by-elections of 2014, the Congress had won here.
In fact, after Poonam Madam won the 2012 assembly elections on a BJP ticket and became an MP in 2014, there was a by-election on this seat. Earlier in 2007, 2002, 1998 and 1995 also BJP had won here. Congress was successful in registering victory here in 1990 and 1962. Independent Hematbhai Madam won from here for four consecutive terms in 1972, 1975, 1980 and 1985. Hematbhai Madam’s daughter Poonam Madam won from here in 2012 on a BJP ticket. And in 2014 and 2019, Poonam won from the Jamnagar Lok Sabha seat.
Gadhvi joined AAP demanding change
Journalist-turned-politician Gadhvi (40-years) entered politics a year ago in June 2021 and joined AAP demanding change after 27 years of BJP rule in the state. He was made the national general secretary of the party. He was announced as the chief ministerial candidate by party chief Arvind Kejriwal in November this year.
According to AAP, it had asked people to give their opinion about the chief ministerial candidate through social media, SMS and email. More than seventy percent of the respondents expressed their opinion in favor of Gadhvi. However, in spite of all this, Isudan Gadhvi could not show any wonder on his seat and lost in the election.
