Buoyed by a remarkable performance in recently concluded local body polls in six municipal corporations in Gujarat, AAP and AIMIM have now decided to up their political games and decided to concentrate on the electorate which had voted for them.
A report in Sandesh says that AAP will now focus on Saurashtra region of Gujarat which has a considerable Patidar population while AIMIM will focus on Godhra and Bharuch, which has sizeable Muslim population. In February 2002, a train coming from Ayodhya carrying karsevaks, was set on fire at Godhra which led to widescale communal riots. AIMIM has won 7 seats in AMC polls and has fielded candidates for Modasa, Godhra and Bharuch Zilla and Palika Panchayat polls to be held on 28th February 2021.
As per reports, Godhra municipality has 11 wards for 44 councillors. Most of these candidates are independent as neither BJP nor Congress has usually fielded candidates in most of the wards. Of these 44 seats, 20 are in Muslim-majority areas. In 2015, all the candidates in these 20 seats were independent as neither BJP nor Congress fielded anyone. The AIMIM has been very active in these areas and is quite confident of emerging as a majority party.
On Tuesday, after AIMIM made an impressive debut in Ahmedabad polls, Owaisi held a public rally in Godhra and said that unlike Congress, AIMIM will not ignore Muslims. The Muslims in the area have also welcomed AIMIM with open arms. When he was on his way from Modasa to Godhra, a huge crowd of Muslims gathered to welcome Owaisi in Godhra.
On the other hand, AAP has fielded 304 candidates for Zilla Panchayat and 1067 for Taluka Panchayat polls of which majority are in Saurashtra rural region.
Meanwhile, following the humiliating defeat Congress district chiefs in Rajkot, Vadodara and Surat have already resigned. Ahmedabad district head has also resigned after taking responsibility of the defeat. On the other hand, Congress has suspended over 14 NSUI members for anti-party activities and 10 more are in the process of being suspended. Further, a list of 100 Congress members is created for helping other parties win while being in Congress.
In the recently concluded six civic bodies polls in Gujarat, over 1,340 candidates have lost their deposits. Of these, at least 178 Congress candidates have lost their deposits.
As reported by Sandesh, despite a lower voter turnout, there has been an increase of 2.8% vote share for the BJP. Whereas, AAP has cut into Congress’ vote share. Of the total 575 seats, the BJP won 482 seats and Congress won only 55 seats. Congress’ vote share has come down from 41.57% to 26.86%. Of the 14.71% vote share that Congress lost, AAP has eaten into 13.96% vote share while Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM has registered 1.45% vote share.
