AHMEDABAD: On the one hand, the BJP in Gujarat claims to have won each seat by more than 5 lakh votes. On the other hand, the Gujarat BJP has deployed 27% of candidates for the state’s 26 Lok Sabha seats who have affiliations with or histories in the Congress party. This includes individuals who were formerly associated with Congress, defectors or have familial ties to Congress members.In Gujarat, the BJP has declared candidates for all 26 Lok Sabha seats, with seven of them having previously been associated directly or indirectly with the Congress party.The seven BJP candidates, with some form of connection to the Congress party, are Shobhana Ben Bariya for the Sabarkantha seat, Chandu Shihora for Surendranagar, Prabhu Vasava for Bardoli, Devu Sinh Chauhan for Kheda, Bharat Sinh Dabhi for Patan, and Vinod Chavda for Kutch.Sabar Kantha is the constituency where the BJP is encountering the most resistance from its party members. Here party replaced its candidate Bhikhaji Thakore and nominated Shobhana Bariya, whose husband, Mahendra Sinh Bariya, was previously a Congress MLA, winning the Prantij Assembly seat in 2012. Mahendra Singh initially served as an MLA for the Congress party before switching allegiance to the BJP in 2022.Similarly, Chandu Shihora, the BJP candidate for Surendranagar, held the position of taluka president for the Congress party in the past, while Prabhu Vasava, BJP’s candidate for Bardoli, served as a Congress MLA in 2012 before defecting to the BJP in 2014.Devu Sinh, the BJP candidate from Kheda, was an active member of Congress; he has been repeated this time from the Kheda Lok Sabha seat by the BJP; he was eager to contest the election from Congress on the Matar Assembly seat in Kheda district in 2007, However, when the Congress gave the ticket to Narahari Amin instead, Devu Sinh switched to the BJP. He contested the Matar Assembly seat on a BJP ticket and secured victory in 2007, defeating Narhari Amin, who is now a BJP Rajya Sabha MP.Similarly, Bharat Singh Dabhi, the BJP’s candidate from Patan, is the son of the late Shankarji Okhaji Thakor, a former Congress MLA. Moreover, Vinod Chavda, the BJP’s candidate from Kutch, was previously associated with the Congress party.BJP has repeated these candidates on these seats. Due to the ongoing influx of Congress leaders in Gujarat, internal discontent among BJP members has been steadily increasing. Expressing frustration over this trend, a three-term MLA from the Savli seat in Vadodara district initially tendered his resignation, but later retracted it following intervention by the state chief.Hiren Banker, a spokesperson for the Congress, criticized the BJP, stating, “While the BJP boasts of winning each seat in Gujarat by over 5 lakh votes, they are unable to field candidates from their own party. If there truly is a BJP wave in Gujarat, why resort to selecting Congress leaders as Lok Sabha candidates?”On Tuesday, the BJP announced its candidate list for the bye-elections to five Assembly seats left vacant after the resignation of Congress MLAs who recently joined the BJP.Four of these candidates are Same Congress turncoats, while the fifth candidate was an independent MLA who joined the BJP after resigning from the legislative position.
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