Rural and agrarian distress was reflected in the results of legislative assembly in Gujarat on Monday as voters punished the ruling BJP, giving its rival Congress more than 50 percent of seats in rural and semi-urban areas of the state. This is in clear contrast with the voting pattern in the cities, where voters continued to repose their faith in the BJP. Congress' performance was the most impressive in Saurashtra region where it swept districts of Amreli, Morbi, Gir Somnath and Surendranagar.

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The results show that the Patidar agitation also affected BJP's vote share in Saurashtra than other parts of the state.

Rural areas didn’t get swayed by emotional issues and stuck to real issues.

In the 182-member legislative assembly of Gujarat, as many as 134 seats come from rural and semi-urban seats. Congress won 71 of them, followed by the BJP's 57 while two went to Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP), one to Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and three to independents, one of which is Congress-backed Scheduled Caste (SC) leader Jignesh Mevani. 

Chhotubhai Vasava-led BTP had entered into a poll pact with the Congress.

Dinesh Shukla, former Professor of Political Science said the results were a reflection of the results of District Panchayats and Taluka Panchayats almost two years ago. 

He also attributed the result to the hard work done by Rahul Gandhi and three young men of Gujarat, namely Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mevani. 

“Rahul Gandhi's emergence as a credible political leader is a welcome aspect of Gujarat elections. His down to earth nature has impressed the masses. Congress' gains is the result of effort put in by him, Hardik, Alpesh and Jignesh,” said Shukla. 

He said that the rural distress coupled with lack of efforts by the government to resolve the problems made farmers vote against the BJP. Sagar Rabari, secretary of Khedut Samaj – Gujarat attributed the anti-establishment voting in rural areas to the persistent neglect of agriculture and farmers during the BJP rule, particularly after 2001. 

“The key problems of farmers are low prices of their produce. Most often farmers do not even recover the input costs. They get electricity only at night, do not get adequate water for irrigation. They are at a constant mercy of market forces, they are vulnerable and the government is not able to protect them. They obviously voted against BJP,” said Rabari.

He complimented rural voters, who are relatively less educated compared to their urban peers but voted on the basis of real issues, while urban voters ‘blindly supported BJP’. He also said that while Patidar agitation was effective in Saurashtra, it was less effective in other parts of the state.