The contest for Gandhinagar South constituency of Gandhinagar district has become a focus point in the forthcoming Gujarat Assembly elections, after the ruling BJP fielded its OBC (Thakor) leader Alpesh Thakor from the seat, although he had contested Assembly elections on two previous occasions from Radhanpur constituency of Patan district. Ever since Gandhinagar South, dominated by the Thakor community, was carved out from the Gandhinagar Assembly constituency in 2008, it has witnessed two elections, in 2012 and 2017. On both occasions, BJP candidate Shambhuji Thakor won against Congress candidates. In 2012, Shambhuji defeated Congress's Jugaji Thakor by a margin of over 8,000 votes. In 2017, Shambhuji's winning margin went up further, to over 11,500 votes, while defeating Congress's Govindji Solanki. In 2022, the seat is witnessing a three-pronged contest, with the AAP entering the political scene. The Congress has fielded its spokesperson, Himanshu Patel, lawyer and a local Patidar, from the seat. The AAP, too, has nominated a Patidar, Dolat Patel, from the constituency. Gandhinagar South has over 3.71 lakh voters. A broad, caste-based analysis of the voters show the Thakor community is the single largest group in this seat, with around 1.15 lakh voters, followed by Patidars with around 90,000 voters. The third significant community is Dalits, with around 25-30,000 voters. The seat also has around 10-15,000 non-Gujarati speaking communities. The BJP declared Alpesh's name on November 14. Sources said he was again eyeing the Radhanpur constituency in Patan, but there was a lot of opposition within the local party unit against his candidature from the seat. The party eventually fielded Lavingji Thakor from Radhanpur. A close supporter of Alpesh confirmed that although the former had sought the ticket from Radhanpur, he was given Gandhinagar South. “None other than (Union Home Minister) Amit Shah has taken the call,” the supporter said. Alpesh won his first MLA seat from Radhanpur constituency as a Congress candidate in 2017. However, in 2019, he resigned from the party and defected to the BJP, and went on to fight the by-election from the same seat as a BJP candidate, but lost to the Congress's Raghu Desai. Those in the know of the dynamics of the Gandhinagar South constituency, say it will be a relatively safe seat for Alpesh, owing to the overwhelming majority of Thakors there. The two Patidar candidates of the Congress and the AAP may also divide the Patidar votes, which would prove advantageous for Alpesh, sources say.
