Gujarat sweep

The BJP’s best score from Gujarat so far was in 2009 when it got 15 seats.

Beating of drums, fireworks and impromptu jigs on the roads marked the scripting of history in Gujarat as the Bharatiya Janata Party bagged all 26 Lok Sabha seats, demolishing the Congress and its previous record 25 seats in the wake of the assasination of prime minister Indira Gandhi.

The BJP’s best score from Gujarat so far was in 2009 when it got 15 seats.

Once the trends became clear, Modi went to meet his mother Hiraba at his youngest brother Pankaj’s home in Gandhinagar. The tech savvy Modi also posted a selfie with her on Twitter.

The Narendra Modi-powered election, saw four of the seven assembly seats going to BJP in the byelections held simultaneously.

A jubiliant Modi gave his first victory address in Vadodara where he won by a margin of 5.7 lakh votes, the second largest after Lok Janshakti Party leader Ram Vilas Paswan’s 5.04 lakh in 1989. Sixteen BJP candidates have posted impressive leads of over two lakh votes, even as the party got its highest vote share at 59 per cent with the Congress securing only 32 per cent votes. Close contests were witnessed only in Anand and Sabarkantha, from where Bharatsinh Solanki and Shankersinh Vaghela contested.

The jubiliant mood, however was not reflected in the minority dominated areas. In Vadodara, shopkeepers downed shutters in the Muslim-dominated areas of Mandvi, well ahead of Modi’s address while the mood in Ahmedabad’s Juhapura and other areas remained sombre.