Direct fight help Congress’s Babuji Thakor beat BJP’s DD Patel by 8,188 votes; party had last won the seat in 1990.
The Congress has emerged victorious in the by-elections to the Mansa assembly constituency. In the results declared on Wednesday, Congress’s Babuji Thakor defeated his nearest rival and Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Dasrath Patel (DD Patel) by a margin of 8,188 votes. Congress has managed to wrest the seat back after a gap of 17 years.
Thakore managed to get 64,776 votes, while BJP’s DD Patel could corner only 56,588 in the polls held on March 18. The Congress had last won the Mansa seat in 1990. Congress’s Ishwarsinh Chavda had defeated Janata Dal candidate Kantilal Patel then. However, in 1995, he lost to BJP’s Vipul Chaudhary.
The BJP had fielded a big force of workers and leaders in the by-poll but failed to get the desired result. This time there was a direct fight between the BJP and the Congress, said sources in BJP.
“If you take a look at the past three elections won by BJP, they were tri-pronged contests and the third candidate cornered votes from Congress’s vote bank, thus helping the saffron party win the elections,” said sources.
The BJP could not lure any strong candidate from the Congress into their fold who could eat into the lion’s share of Congress’ committed votebank. “Everyone has set their eyes on the bigger polls scheduled for the end of the year, so why would anyone rebel for a shorter period?” asked sources in BJP.
Moreover, the Congress had the upper hand as there were 1.17 lakh votes from OBC, Kshatriya and SC community along with 15,000 Chaudhary community votes, said BJP sources. Apart from that, BJP had to face the wrath of a segment of the Patidar community.
As soon as the news of by-election results were out, everyone was claiming that they had predicted the defeat. However, all had different versions for the BJP setback. “The party did not pay enough attention to the lower cadre party workers. Moreover, the senior candidates were not taken into confidence,” said a BJP worker.
Another saffron party worker credited the Congress with hard work and reaching out to the voters for the party’s success. Yet another BJP worker believed that the saffron party took the Rupiyawala-Pavliwala spat lightly and that cost them dearly.
BJP candidate Dasrath Patel was not available for comment as he was busy analyzing the reasons for the defeat. BJP’s state president RC Faldu accepted the verdict of the people.
On the other hand, the Congress is upbeat and is taking this result as a sign of BJP’s imminent downfall.
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