Ahmedabad, 2/12: In the last two Assembly elections, the Congress has performed better than the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in north Gujarat, which accounts for 32 seats, and the Opposition party will aim to retain its edge in the region in 2022, too, with some factors going in its favour.
Elections will be held in the region in the second phase on December 5 when the remaining 93 seats in the 182-member Assembly will be covered. While the BJP faces rebellion in some pockets and an undercurrent of anger palpable among the dominant OBC Chaudhary community due to the arrest of dairy cooperative leader and former home minister Vipul Chahduary, local caste dynamics and selection of candidates are likely to play a major role in the final outcome, political analysts said.
Out of the 32 Assembly seats spread across six districts of the region – Banaskantha, Patan, Mehsana, Sabarkantha, Aravalli and Gandhinagar – the Congress won 17 seats in both the 2012 and 2017 elections. The BJP, on the other hand, emerged victorious in 15 and 14 Assembly constituencies in 2012 and 2017, respectively. In the last polls, one seat (SC-reserved Vadgam) went to an independent candidate, Jignesh Mevani, who was supported by the Congress. The Opposition party has reposed its trust in a majority of its sitting MLAs in the region, and has renominated 11 of them