Ghatlodia: Bhupendra Patel, BJP's CM face, heads for a repeat victory

Ahmedabad: Gujarat chief minister Bhupendra Patel on Thursday headed for a second straight win from the urban constituency of Ghatlodia, where he had taken a comfortable lead of almost 20,000 votes over his nearest rival after five rounds of vote counting.

As per the latest update from the Election Commission, Patel had polled 23,713 votes, compared to 3,840 votes polled by his Congress rival Amiben Yagnik. AAP candidate Vijay Patel was running third with 2,168 votes.

Patidar-dominated Ghatlodia, which is part of the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency, has given Gujarat two chief ministers - Bhupendra Patel and Anandiben Patel. It is a stronghold of BJP.

In 2017, despite the Patidar quota agitation, Bhupendra Patel had won the seat with a huge margin of 1.17 lakh votes. The BJP has already announced that Patel will be given the top post again after this election.

Ghatlodia, which has around 3.70 lakh voters, became a new assembly constituency following the delimitation exercise undertaken in 2012. Earlier, it was a part of Sarkhej constituency.

In 2012, Anandiben Patel – then chief minister of Gujarat -- had won the seat with margin of more than 1.1 lakh.

To make an impact in Ghatlodia, the Congress party fielded noted lawyer and activist Amiben Yagnik whose door-to-door campaign focussed on price rise, unemployment and corruption during Patel's tenure as CM.

Besides Patidars, the other dominant social group comprise the Rabaris, who are classified as OBC and are mostly split between Congress and BJP.