In great booster ahead of Assembly polls next year, ruling BJP snatched traditional Congress seat in a by-poll of Talala Assembly constituency situated on the outskirts of world renowned Gir sanctuary famous for Asiatic lions.
Talala constituency is considered as Congress bastion. In the past two Assembly polls in 2007 and 2012 Congress candidate Jasubhai Barad won with huge margin.
In fact since 1995, Congress lost Talala seat only twice. It became vacant due to sudden death of sitting Congress MlA Barad. Congress fielded his brother Bhagwanbhai Barad who is former MlA. BJP on the other hand fielded its former MlA from Talala Govindbhai Parmar.
The by-poll was conducted on May 16th and counting initiated on Thursday morning. When counting started Congress was leading but in the final rounds of counting table turned and BJP candidate Parmar emerge victorious with comfortable margin of around 2500 votes.
With this BJP’s tally in 182-seat Gujarat assembly surge to 121. BJP’s Govind Parmar polled 61,721 votes, defeating Congress’ Bhagwan Barad by 2,189 votes. The latter managed 59,532 votes.
The Assembly constituency, which was facing a by-election after the death of Congress’ veteran MlA Jashubhai Barad, had witnessed 63.66 per cent polling on Monday. Talala has 2.03 lakh eligible voters, of whom over 1.29 lakh had exercised their franchise. As many as 1390 voters used NOTA option.