BJP Wins Gujarat But Misses its 150-Seats Target

Thee BJP retained control of Gujarat in this year’s assembly elections, but with a significantly diminished majority. The party won  99 of 182 assembly seats in Gujarat, down from 115 seats in 2012. In advance of the elections, the party had targeted boasted it would win 150 seats.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who took on Prime Minister Narendra Modi toe to toe in the Gujarat elections boasted that the polls had delivered a “zabardast jhatka (terrific shock)” to the BJP and exposed Modi’s credibility crisis.

Gandhi, whose Congress Party performed above expectations, said: “It is a very good result for us. Agreed that we lost and could have won, we fell short. But BJP suffered a massive jolt in Gujarat. People of Gujarat do not accept Modi’s model. It is high on propaganda but it’s hollow.”

The BJP taunted that Gandhi was enjoying his “defeat as victory.” BJP Chief Amit Shah blamed the Congress and its allies for sowing the seeds of “caste politics” and the “low level of political discourse” for failing to achieve its 150 seat target. “Congress brought the level of the campaign down, because of which our number of seats went down.”

My Congress brothers and sisters, you have made me very proud. You are different than those you fought because you fought anger with dignity. You have demonstrated to everyone that the Congress’s greatest strength is its decency and courage.

— Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) December 18, 2017

LIVE: Press conference by BJP Shri @AmitShah on #ElectionResults.#HimachalPradeshElections #GujaratResults https://t.co/VQ0OBlKW7N

— BJP (@BJP4India) December 18, 2017

The BJP has also swept Himachal Pradesh winning 44 seats of 68 seats in the state, while the Congress managed to win 21 seats.

The Gujarati NRI community campaigned actively for the BJP. A group of 60 Gujarati NRIs who had flown in to Gujarat earlier this month and urged the voters not to be “swayed by misleading forces.”

The NRIs belonged to a range of professions, including doctors, pharmacists, businessmen and technology executives. 51-year-old Jashubhai Patel, a surgeon from California, said that Modi has given a “unified identity” to Indians abroad.

“The way he has taken Hindutva to the world, from yoga to Indian way of simple living, everyone is looking up to us. I tell voters to strengthen him. Life was very difficult for us when we were growing up in Gujarat. Narendrabhai took Gujarat out of the misery of both caste politics and underdevelopment,” he told The Economic Times.

Bharat Barai, an oncologist who was among the NRIs who had arranged Modi’s Madison Square address in New York to Indian-Americans was also in the state to campaign for BJP.

Interestingly, 2 per cent of the voters in Gujarat voted for NOTA — none of the above.