Twenty Six constituencies of Gujarat go to poll today on 7th May in the third phase of 2024 Parliamentary elections. NDA constituent BJP has fielded their candidates on all 26 seats, whereas INDIA partners Indian National Congress and Aam Admi Party have fielded 24 and 2 candidates respectively.
Interestingly, out of 52 candidates from two major political alliances in Gujarat, the highest number of candidates bearing the same surname – Patel- is 7. At the second spot is the Makwana surname with four people sharing the same surname. Chaudhary, Thakor, and Vasava are three surnames with three candidates sharing the same, at the third sport.
Out of seven candidates with Patel surname in the fray, 4 are fielded by the BJP and 3 from the Congress. However, out of three Congress candidates with the Patel surname only Sonal Patel belongs to the Patidar community, which uses the Patel surname traditionally. Anant Patel and Himmatsinh Patel do not belong to the Patidar community.
All the three Thakor candidates and out of the four Makwana candidates, three belong to the Congress party. While two Makwana candidates, one each from Congress and BJP, are from the Vankar ( Weaver) community which is a scheduled caste in Gujarat, the other two Makwanas belong to the Koli community.
Out of 4 BJP candidates with Patel Surname, 3 are patidars. Apart from this, there are 6 other surnames such as Rupala, Dhanani, Vasoya, Maraviya,Thummar and Mandaviya are Patidars. Kumbhani, the Congress candidate in Surat, who is accused by Congress workers of conniving with the BJP for arranging to get his nomination rejected is also a Patidar surname.
