Gujarat: The Bharatiya Janata Party has won the elections to the Gujarat assembly held recently. But the BJP has won with narrow majority losing 16 seats compared to 2012 Gujarat elections. On the other hand, the grand-old Party has increased tally from 61 to 77.
A deeper analysis of the Gujarat assembly elections 2017 results reveals a different picture. Out of 182 constituencies, there are 23 such constituencies in which Congress party could have won the elections but the number of independents contested from these constituencies proved a setback for the Congress party. Even then, the margin between the winning party BJP and congress party was narrow.
For instance, in Tharad constituency the BJP got 69789 votes and congress party secured 58056 votes. On the other hand, in the same constituency, the independents together secured 45975 votes. Hadn’t the votes were split among these independents, it was an easy win for Congress in Tharad.
Similarly in Vijapur, BJP secured 72326 votes, while the Congress party got 71162 votes. This was a very narrow margin between the two parties. Meanwhile, the Independents and other regional parties secured 5761 votes. Hence, once again votes were spilt between marginal players in the contest.
In Dholka Constituency, the votes polled for BJP were 71530, whereas for Congress the votes polled were 71203. The margin of votes between the two parties was 327. This was a very narrow margin. The independents together, excluding other parties, secured 10323 votes.
There are many other constituencies such as Porbandar, Gariadhar, Palitana, Botad, Khambhat, Umreth, Matar, Godhra etc. where the Congress party lost with narrow margins.