In the December 2022 Gujarat Assembly elections, the BJP swept to power for the seventh consecutive time, winning 156 seats, its highest ever tally, out of 182. The principal Opposition Congress managed to win just 17 seats in its worst performance in the state.
The Congress’s then sitting MLA from Tharad, Gulabsinh Rajput, had lost from the seat to the BJP’s Shankar Chaudhary, who went on to get elected as the Assembly Speaker. In Vav, the then incumbent Congress MLA Geniben Thakor retained her seat, defeating BJP candidate Swarupji Thakor by 15,601 votes.
Both the Tharad and Vav seats are part of the Banaskantha parliamentary constituency from where Geniben won in the recent Lok Sabha elections, trouncing the BJP’s Rekhaben Chaudhary by over 30,000 votes.
While the BJP bagged 25 Lok Sabha seats out of the state’s 26, Geniben emerged as the lone Congress MP by winning the Banaskantha seat. The Vav seat was vacated by her, necessitating its by-election to be held on November 13.
Interestingly, for the Vav bypoll, while the Congress has fielded Gulabsinh Rajput, the BJP has put up Swarupji Thakor. Both of them were the losing candidates of the 2022 polls.
A close aide of Geniben, Gulabsinh Rajput is a Kshatriya (upper caste) while Swarupji Thakor belongs to the Thakor (OBC) community.
Vav is a rural constituency in north Gujarat, dominated by the Thakor and Chaudhary (OBC) caste groups. It also has significant number of voters from the Brahmin and Dalit communities.
While some observers believe that the Vav bypoll may witness a polarisation between the Thakor and non-Thakor voters, a senior Congress leader says, “Geniben’s popularity will draw Thakor votes to the Congress, so there is a good chance that we will again win the seat.”
After Geniben’s resignation, the Congress is down to 12 MLAs, its lowest figure in the Assembly. With its original 17-seat tally, the party had not been able to get the post of Leader of the Opposition, even as four party MLAs resigned to join the BJP in the wake of the 2022 polls.
The Congress has thus high stakes in this bypoll, which is also crucial for Geniben. The grand old party is also going all out to retain the Vav seat as it has been its stronghold.
With the AAP deciding not to field its candidate in the bypoll, Rajput is taking on the BJP candidate as the Opposition INDIA bloc’s nominee in a straight battle.
Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president and Rajya Sabha MP Shaktisinh Gohil says, “People are with us. Our only challenge is that we don’t have the money to fight elections, which the BJP has, and it has the government machinery.”
He also says, “We will spend the entire festival season campaigning, till the voting day on November 13.”
The Congress put up a show of strength on Friday when Rajput filed his nomination, holding a rally addressed by Gohil, Geniben and Congress Legislature Party leader Amit Chavda. In their speeches, they said the party will fight against the “ahankari (arrogant)” and “janta virodhi (anti-people)” BJP.
“The BJP has always discriminated against Banaskantha,” alleges Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi. “Everything was achieved in Banaskantha after protests, fights that Geniben took up – be it for the compensation of the farmers whose crops were destroyed in the squalls of 2017-18, or for the repair work of the Narmada canal in the district. These are the issues we will take up in our bypoll campaign.”
Another Congress leader claims the party would win because of the “BJP’s infighting”. “They (BJP) had 32 contenders for this one seat, while we had only four. Why else would a ruling party have to declare its candidate after us?”, the leader asks.
On the other hand, the BJP, whose tally in the House has swelled to 161, exudes confidence that its development card would again work. The ruling party’s Vav bypoll in-charge and Mehmedabad MLA, Arjunsinh Chauhan, said, “People of all communities have decided to ensure a BJP win this time for development, following which our tally in the Assembly will rise to 162.”
In the last five elections since 2002, Congress has bagged the Vav seat three times – in 2002, 2017 and 2022 – with the BJP winning it in 2007 and 2012.
In 2012, Shankar Chaudhary had defeated Geniben. However, Geniben returned to defeat him in 2017.