Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Live

BJP drops 38 sitting MLAs in first list for polls in Guj

- HT Correspond­ent

AHMEDABAD: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday announced a list of 160 candidates for the upcoming assembly elections in Gujarat, dropping 38 lawmakers and picking fresh faces, including for the crucial seat of Morbi, where a bridge collapse two weeks ago killed 135 people.

The announceme­nt came a day after four top party leaders, including former chief minister Vijay Rupani and his deputy Nitin Patel, said they had opted out of the electoral race.

Gujarat, which has 182 seats, goes to the polls in two phases on December 1 and 5.

“Thirty-eight MLAs have been replaced .... BJP usually changes 20% of its MLAs. In electoral democracy, change is necessary, otherwise it will lead to stagnation. We have given tickets to several youngsters. This list shows a generation­al shift in Gujarat BJP,” the party’s state unit president C R Patil told news agency PTI.

The BJP fielded 40 Patidar and 49 OBC candidates in the first list, reflecting the importance of these two communitie­s in its social coalition.

The BJP is looking to secure a seventh electoral victory in the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah. The state is witnessing the first triangular electoral contest since 1990 with the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) hoping to dislodge the BJP. The party fielded chief minister Bhupendra Patel from his seat of Ghatlodiya in Ahmedabad, Patidar agitation leader Hardik Patel (who switched from the Congress to the BJP in June) from Viramgam and BJP member Rivaba Jadeja (also the wife of cricketer Ravindra Jadeja) from Jamnagar north.

From Morbi, the party fielded former lawmaker Kantilal Amrutiya, who quickly became popular after visuals of him jumping into the river and rescuing drowning people went viral. The collapse of

(GHATLODIYA) Gujarat chief minister who is also the party’s regional face in the polls

(VIRAMGAM)

Face of Patidar agitation in 2017 assembly polls who later quit the Congress to join the BJP

(JAMNAGAR NORTH) Cricketer Ravindra Jadeja’s wife. She has served as the women’s unit chief of Karni Sena

(MORBI) A five-time lawmaker, he jumped into the river to rescue people after the Morbi bridge collapse

(TALALA)

Key Ahir leader who resigned from the Congress on Wednesday

(RAJKOT WEST)

Former chief minister who was succeeded by Patel. He announced on Wednesday that he won’t contest polls

(MAHESANA)

Former deputy chief minister who recently announced his decision to not fight the polls

(DHOLKA) Sitting cabinet minister of education (primary, secondary and adult)

(MORBI)

Minister of state for labour and employment and BJP MLA from Morbi where the bridge collapse

(BHUJ)

Influentia­l leader who became the state’s first woman assembly speaker in 2021

a heritage bridge on October 30 and the deaths of 135 people, many of them children, has stung the local administra­tion with many questions over the conduct of the civic authoritie­s.

A five-time lawmaker, Amrutiya lost the 2017 assembly elections to Congress’s Brijesh Merja. Merja then defected to the BJP in 2020 and defeated Congress’s Jayantilal Patel in a bypoll. He was inducted as a minister after Bhupendra Patel succeeded Rupani as chief minister last year but was

dropped in an apparent bid to blunt local anger in Morbi.

“We have declared names of 160 candidates at a go and there has been no protests from within. In fact, the candidates whose names have been dropped will work in team spirit to ensure victory of BJP with a record number this time. All sections of the society have been given representa­tion, including two saints,” said Zubin Ashara, state media co-head of the BJP.

For the first phase, when 89 seats go to the polls, the BJP declared the names of 84 candidates. For the second phase of 93 constituen­cies, the BJP named 76 picks. In all, the first list had 14 women, 12 Scheduled Caste and 24 Scheduled Tribe candidates. The party fielded 10 candidates below 40, four medical doctors and four PhD holders.

A number of senior lawmakers – including Nimaben Acharya from Bhuj, Rajendra Trivedi from Raopura and Madhu Shrivastav from Waghodia – were dropped. Trivedi was the state parliament­ary and legislativ­e affairs minister. Besides Trivedi, four other ministers from the Bhupendra Patel cabinet were dropped from the list.

The BJP has ruled Gujarat continuous­ly since 1998. But in the 2017 election, it faced a tough challenge from the Congress, which made inroads into the BJP’s citadel and secured 77 seats to the BJP’s 99. The Congress was helped by discontent among farmers and traders, anti-incumbency and a sweeping agitation by Patidars for quotas in jobs and education.

This time around, the discontent is more muted and the agitation has been extinguish­ed. Many leaders who helped the Congress put up its best performanc­e in a generation are in the BJP now, including Hardik Patel and OBC leader Alpesh Thakor. In a bid to stave off anti-incumbency, the BJP virtually changed the entire council of ministers, including the chief minister, last year.

The Congress is hoping to exploit grassroots discontent with sitting legislator­s and the new entrant, the AAP, is banking on its record of efficient welfare delivery and high-decibel campaign in urban centres such as Surat and rural regions such as Saurashtra.

Major change was seen in Ahmedabad, where only three of the BJP’s 21 sitting lawmakers found themselves nominated again in the first list. Shankar Chaudhary, a prominent OBC leader who lost the 2017 elections, will contest from Tharad.

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