Ghatlodia Election 2022: It is a battle of status for Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel

Ghatlodia Meeting Election 2022: BJP’s sitting chief minister Bhupendra Patel is contesting from the Ghatlodia meeting phase, which is a part of the Ahmedabad district and falls beneath the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency. Gandhinagar has been the bastion of the saffron get together, which has retained this seat since 1989. BJP stalwarts like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, LK Advani, and Amit Shah have represented Gandhinagar within the Lok Sabha.  

Patel, who was a shock choose to interchange Vijay Rupani because the chief minister only a yr earlier than the election, is up in opposition to Amee Yajnik of Congress and Vijay Patel of the AAP. Yajnik is a Rajya Sabha MP from Gujarat. Dominated by Patidar and Rabari communities, Ghatlodia voted for the BJP within the earlier election regardless of an enormous agitation – in opposition to the federal government – led by Hardik Patel.
     
The Patidar reservation motion in 2015 was the most important agitation that the BJP authorities had confronted in its practically three-decade rule in Gujarat. Then Chief Minister Anandiben Patel was the MLA from Ghatlodia. Within the subsequent election held in 2017, she vacated the seat for Bhupendra Patel, who gained the election by nearly the identical vote share.

In 2012, Anandiben defeated Congress’ Ramesh Patel by over 1.10 lakh votes. She received 74.51 per cent vote share whereas Patel might handle solely 21.31 per cent votes. In 2017, Bhupendra Patel defeated his Congress rival Shashikant Patel by an even bigger margin. Whereas the BJP chief received 175,652 votes with 72.65 per cent vote share, the Congress candidate secured 57,902 votes by 23.95 per cent vote share.

This was a humiliating defeat for the Congress by any measure because it couldn’t capitalise on the anger and momentum created by the Patidar agitation. The protest was additionally in opposition to the then-sitting chief minister Anandiben Patel. However the BJP outmaneuvered the Congress by altering the candidate to beat anti-incumbency.

Contemplating the historical past and legacy of this meeting seat, Patel should win this election by an nearly comparable margin and vote share. To date, it seems like there isn’t any main risk for him as Hardik Patel, who led the Patidar protest, is now campaigning for the BJP – and two challengers from the Congress and AAP are but to create their base.    

Ghatlodia will go to polls in Section 2 on December 5.