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Day of reckoning: Gujarat BJP looks at a clean sweep, Congress hopeful of 10

Counting for 26 seats will take place at 28 centres across state; Amit Shah may win by record margin in Gandhinagar

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Security men guard the counting room in Ahmedabad
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As India awaits the verdict on May 23, it remains to be seen whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state will hand him the sort of massive victory seen in 2014. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the saffron party swept all the 26 seats in Gujarat.

This time too it is hoping for a repeat performance except for a loss of one or two seats. The Congress meanwhile is hoping to snatch at least eight seats from its rival. Exit polls however do not support the aspirations of the Congress although the party has put up a brave face stating that the results will indeed show it has managed to create a dent.

In all, counting will be held at 28 centres across the state including two in Ahmedabad alone. The state that saw a voter turnout of of 64.11%, the highest since 1967, has some high profile candidates including BJP president Amit Shah who is contesting from Gandhinagar.

Shah is expected to win with a record margin surpassing the earlier leads for the BJP on the seat.

"Counting of votes will be held on Thursday at 28 centres. Elaborate security arrangements have been made at all the counting centres," state Chief Electoral Officer S Murali Krishnan said in a release. Ahmedabad collector Vikrant Pande said that the administration will also be making use of AMC's LED boards in various parts of the city to show updates about the results.

The administration has also disallowed mobile phones inside the counting centre even for the electoral officers and other employees.

In Ahmedabad, first postal ballots will be counted followed by those in the EVMs.

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani expressed confidence that the BJP will retain all the 26 seats in the state. "There is a Modi 'wave', people of the state are enthusiastic to make Modi the prime minister again. The results are certain," Rupani told reporters in Gandhinagar.

Gujarat Congress chief Amit Chavda, however, claimed his party will win at least 10 Lok Sabha seats in the state. "The results of Gujarat will surprise all," he said.

It should be noted that the BJP is expected to perform well in almost all the urban seats including those in the major cities of Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Rajkot and Surat. Amreli from where Leader of Opposition Paresh Dhanani is contesting is one of the seats that may be a loss to BJP.

In the 2017 state Assembly polls of the 182 seats, the Congress won 77 seats while the BJP bagged 99 giving the latter a wafer thin majority. But a string of desertions by Congress MLA have reduced the Grand Old Party's tally.

Delayed Results

Election authorities said that declaration of results of seats in Gujarat may get delayed by around 3 to 4 hours due to counting of voter-verifiable paper audit trail slips. 

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