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Gujarat: Caste conundrum for BJP in 7 seats

Selection of candidates for these seats is tricky because of the dominance of more than one community

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The BJP leaders have been brainstorming for candidate selection on some seats inorder to get their caste combinations right. The party has assessed different parameters and socio-political equations. But the selection process is tricky when they compare the candidates with Congress members.

There are five to six seats in Gujarat which have diverse caste combination. To balance the equation, BJP will have to choose their counterparts accordingly. "Sabarkantha, Jamnagar, Junagadh, Bhavnagar, Anand and Navsari are the seats where the party leaders were perplexed to take the final call," said a senior leader of BJP on condition of anonymity.

He added, "We have to make one choice out of two to three candidates for a single seat. We are fearful of Congress candidates. If they give ticket to someone from second dominating community, we may lose out on a huge chunk of votes in that case."

Banaskantha seat has two major dominating OBC communities and those are Chaudhary(Anjana Patel) and Thakor. If BJP gives ticket to candidate from Chaudhary community and Congress may give ticket to a member of Thakor community. The Thakor votes go one sided and possibly that could affect neighbouring constituency Patan too where Thakor votes are a deciding factor. The same way, the combination of Thakor, Patel and Kshatriya community on Sabarkantha seat also have increased worries for BJP.

Likewise, Jamnagar has mixed dominance of Patel and Ahir (nomadic) community, whereas Junagadh and Bhavnagar have tight competition between the Patels, Koli (fisherman), Ahir and Karadia (farming) communities. "The results in last assembly polls also indicate that maximum of our candidates lost because of the caste equations. We are therefore cannot afford to take things casually or to try out any kind of political experiment. We would proceed cautiously," the leader added.

The BJP is likely to announce of the names of their candidates next week. The party is hopeful that the Congress' list would comes out soon, so that they would have time to make last moment changes, if needed. The last day of filing nomination for Lok Sabha polls on Gujarat seat is April 4.

FIGHT FOR A SEAT

Banaskantha seat has two major dominating OBC communities and those are Chaudhary and Thakor. Likewise, Jamnagar has mixed dominance of Patel and Ahir (nomadic) community, whereas Junagadh and Bhavnagar have tight competition between Patels, Koli (fisherman), Ahir and Karadia (farming) communities.

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