In Gujarat, the BJP won a crucial byelection for the Jasdan Assembly constituency on Sunday.
Kunvarji Bavalia, Minister for Water Resources, won the poll by a margin of almost 20,000 votes, defeating his nearest rival Avsar Nakia from the Congress.
Mr. Bavalia’s victory from this rural seat in the Saurashtra region came as a huge sign of relief to the ruling party which had suffered heavily in the region in December 2017 owing to farm distress.
Mr. Bavalia polled 90,268 votes, 19,985 votes more than his Congress rival.
‘Clear indication’
Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said the victory in Jasdan was a clear indication that the BJP would win all 26 seats in Gujarat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
“This is a clear indication that the BJP will win 26 seats in the Lok Sabha elections in Gujarat under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership,” Mr. Rupani said in Gandhinagar.
In Jasdan, the bypoll was necessitated after the Congress legislator, Mr. Bavalia, had defected to the BJP and became a Cabinet Minister within hours of his joining the ruling party. He had to resign as a legislator and get re-elected from Jasdan within six months.
Koli community
To take on him, the Congress has fielded Mr. Nakia, once his protege and local panchayat member.
Both Mr. Bavalia and Mr. Nakia are from the numerically significant Koli community, which dominates close to 40 Assembly seats in Saurashtra and south Gujarat.
Traditionally, Jasdan has been a stronghold of Mr. Bavalia, who has been winning the seat since 1995.
In 2009, he became Rajkot MP and resigned as MLA. In the 2009 bypoll too, the BJP wrested the Assembly seat when Mr. Bavalia’s daughter lost to BJP candidate Bharat Boghra.
