Over 1,800 seats in local bodies across Gujarat to go to vote today

Thus, 1,832 seats will see elections while there will be no by-elections on three taluka panchayat seats — one each in Harij (Patan district) along with Bagasara and Babra in Amreli district after no candidate filed nominations to the first two panchayat seats, and one candidate filed for Babra, which was cancelled by the SEC. In all, 5,084 candidates across parties will be contesting in the elections to be held from 7 am to 6 pm.

Of the 68 municipalities going to polls, the fight seems interesting in Kutiyana and Ranavav of Porbandar district where Samajwadi Party (SP) is challenging the BJP directly as Congress or other Opposition parties have not put up a single candidate. Dheliben Odedara has been president of the municipality since 1995. Earlier from the Congress, she later joined the BJP.

Kana Sarmanbhai Jadeja, the youngest son of ‘Godmother’ Santokben Jadeja, is making his electoral debut on one of the Kutiyana wards on an SP ticket.

His elder brother Kandhal, who is the only SP MLA in the Gujarat Assembly, told The Indian Express, “We will win this time as hardly any work has been done in our area (by the BJP).”

The SP is contesting on 59 seats in Saurashtra alone — 24 in Kutiyana, 28 in Ranavav, six in Upleta and one for a by-election in Dev Bhoomi Dwarka municipalities. While Dheliben, who was busy campaigning, did not comment on the election, general secretary of the SP in Gujarat, Ram Sevak Sahni, told this paper, “We are going to win at least 35 seats this time. Earlier, we had won the Kathlal nagarpalika in Kheda in the last election but all our members joined the BJP.”

Kandhal Jadeja was an MLA winning on a Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), then undivided, ticket but annoyed the party bosses when he cross-voted in the Presidential elections in July 2022. In the elections in December that year, he contested on an SP ticket and won.