More than a month after the result of Gujarat Assembly that held in December 2017, victories of nearly 20 MlAs including couple of Ministers who won by thin margin have been challenged in Gujarat High Court.
Petitions have been filed against MlAs from BJP, Congress and even independent also. Those who challenged the results are former Gujarat Congress president Arjun Modhvadia, senior Congress leader Siddharth Patel, former IPS officer Rahul Sharma, Aam Aadami Party leader Jayanti Mevada to name few.
Victories of couple of senior Gujarat Ministers too have been challenged. Rivals of Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama and Energy Minister Saurabh Patel have file petitions objecting their victories. Chudasama won by mere 327 votes while Patel managed to win by less than 1000 votes. Even some BJP candidates who lost with thin margin have challenged victories of Congress MlAs.
Jayantilal Mevada, a disqualified candidate from Delhi Chief Minister led Aam Aadami Party has filed petition for the re-election of Dani limada constituency in Ahmedabad from where Congress candidate Shailesh Parmar won comfortably. In the case of Mevada, one of his 10 proposers withdrew support and that resulted into his disqualification.
Former Congress president Modhvadia who lost to former Minister Babu Bokhiria from Porbandar assembly seat raised the issue of EVM tempering through Bluetooth. Results of some of the other constituencies were challenged including Gandhinagar North, Jamalpur-Khadia, Patan, Himmatnagar, Godhra, Pratij, Vagra, Kamrej etc.
It is worth mentioning that in the 2017 assembly polls conducted December, BJP won 99 seats out of 182 while opposition Congress party won 77, two seats Bhartiya Tribal Party, one NCP and three seats won by independent candidates. Of these seats, 16 seats were decided by less than 3000 votes margin and 34 seats with 5000 votes margin. In fact five MlAs won by less than 1000 votes.
Congress MlA Jitu Chaudhary won by wafer thin margin of 170 votes from Kaparada constituency while BJP’s Godhra MlA CK Raulji won by 258 votes.