The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate, Swarupji Thakor won the Vav assembly by-election in Gujarat on Saturday, defeating Congress candidate Gulabsinh Rajput by a narrow margin of 2,353 votes.
According to data from the Election Commission of India (ECI), Thakor got 91,755 votes, while Rajput got 89,402.
Mavji Patel, an independent candidate who entered the fray after being denied a BJP ticket, received 27,173 votes in the fiercely contested race.
The by-election, which recorded a 70.55% voter turnout on November 13, was necessitated after sitting Congress MLA Geniben Thakor was elected to Lok Sabha earlier this year from Banaskantha constituency. Voting took place across 321 polling booths at 192 stations, with 3.10 lakh eligible voters comprising 1.61 lakh men and 1.49 lakh women.
The Vav constituency’s demographic includes 83,000 voters from the Thakor community, 50,000 Chaudhary voters, 43,000 Dalits, 25,000 Maldharis (OBC) and 18,000 Brahmins.
The contest was closely watched as it marked the first significant electoral battle in the region following the Congress’s success in the Banaskantha Lok Sabha seat, which includes the Vav Assembly segment.
Thakor’s win is particularly significant as it follows his defeat in the 2022 assembly election to Geniben Thakor, who had represented the Vav seat for two consecutive terms. This included a notable victory over BJP leader and assembly speaker Shankar Chaudhary in the 2017 election.
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