AHMEDABAD, June 23— AAP’s Gopal Italia edged ahead in Visavadar, while the BJP’s Rajendra Chavda maintained a commanding lead in Kadi as early trends trickled in from the counting of votes for the Gujarat Assembly bypolls on Monday.
According to Election Commission data, Italia, the former AAP Gujarat president, was leading by a narrow margin of 391 votes over BJP’s Kirit Patel after two rounds of counting in Visavadar, Junagadh district. Italia had polled 7,179 votes, while Patel stood at 6,788. Congress candidate Nitin Ranpariya remained a distant third.
In contrast, the BJP appeared comfortably placed in Kadi, Mehsana district — a seat reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates — where its nominee Rajendra Chavda secured 12,701 votes, opening up a wide gap over Congress’ Ramesh Chavda, who had polled 6,949 votes by the end of the second round. AAP’s Jagdish Chavda was also in the fray, making it a triangular contest.
The bypolls were held on June 19, registering a voter turnout of 57.90% in Kadi and 56.89% in Visavadar.
The Visavadar seat fell vacant in December 2023 after AAP legislator Bhupendra Bhayani resigned and joined the BJP. Despite its dominance across Gujarat, the BJP has not clinched Visavadar since 2007 — a fact party leaders acknowledged while expressing cautious optimism about breaking the 18-year losing streak. In the 2022 assembly polls, Bhayani had defeated BJP’s Harshad Ribadiya, a former Congress MLA, by 7,063 votes.
Kadi, meanwhile, became vacant following the death of sitting BJP MLA Karsan Solanki on February 4. Congress’ Ramesh Chavda, who won the seat in 2012 but lost to Solanki in 2017, was hoping to stage a comeback. However, initial trends suggest a significant lead for the BJP in this SC-reserved constituency.
“This is a tight contest in Visavadar, but we are confident that Gopal Italia’s grassroots connect will prevail,” said an AAP party worker outside the counting centre. BJP leaders, meanwhile, indicated satisfaction with the early trends in Kadi, calling it a reflection of “voter trust in the government’s development agenda.”
The Gujarat Assembly has 182 seats, with the BJP commanding a supermajority of 161. Congress holds 12, AAP has four, while one seat is held by the Samajwadi Party and two by independents. The results of these two bypolls, while unlikely to impact the overall balance of power, are seen as politically significant for both AAP and Congress as they seek to make electoral inroads in the BJP stronghold.
