Gujarat Assembly polls 2022: BJP rebel Dharmendrasinh Vaghela wins Vaghodia seat, all you need to know

Independent candidate and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rebel Dharmendrasinh Vaghela trounced BJP nominee Ashvin Patel to win Gujarat's Vaghodia Assembly seat. The constituency became a much talked about seat as it faced a four-cornered contest with three of the nominees being associated with the saffron party.

Vaghodia, which is situated on the outskirts of Vadodara city, is an industrial belt and a semi-urban area. Seven candidates were in the fray in the constituency where voting took place on December 5.

Vaghela claimed victory against Patel by a margin of 14,006 votes and bagged a total of 77,905 votes. This time, the Kshatriya factor also played a role in Vaghela's win. On the other hand, Patel secured 63,899. Congress candidate Satyjitsinh Gaekwad ended up with 18,870 ballots.

Madhu Shrivastav, who is the six-term sitting MLA from Vadodara district’s Vaghodia seat, was also in the fray. However, after being denied a poll ticket by the(BJP, he contested as an Independent but secured only 14,645 votes and finished fourth.

In 2017’s assembly polls, Vaghela, who hails from the Saurashtra region, contested from Vaghodia as an independent candidate. However, he was defeated by sitting MLA Shrivastav, who held the constituency since 1995, by over 10,000 votes.

In previous assembly polls, Shrivastav, also known as 'Madhubhai', defeated Vaghela, known as Bapu, by a margin of 10,315 votes. The veteran legislator had won the seat in 1995 as an independent and later on a BJP ticket.

Interestingly, Congress hasn’t fielded a candidate for the Vaghodia Assembly seat in 2017's assembly polls and handed it over to its then-alliance partner Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP). However, this time, Congress had fielded former Vadodara Lok Sabha MP Gaekwad.

Similar to the last time’s assembly polls, both Shrivastav and Vaghela squared off this time too. It should also be noted that in the run-up to elections, both rebel leaders have stated that if they win, they will support BJP.

In the recently-concluded assembly polls, Gujarat has registered a voter turnout of 64.33 per cent to 182 seats, a drop of more than 4 per cent compared to the turnout registered in the 2017 polls.

As per the latest data shared by the Election Commission on Tuesday, the voter turnout for the first phase of elections held on December 1 for 89 seats was 63.31 per cent and 65.30 per cent for the second phase of polling held on December 5 for 93 seats.

Nearly 3.16 crore voters out of a total of 4.91 crore registered voters had turned up to exercise their franchise on December 1 and 5, it said. These 3.16 crore voters included 1.69 crore males (66.74 per cent), 1.46 crore females (61.75 per cent) and 445 voters from the 'third gender' category out of 1,391.

(With input from agencies)