Voting in 93 Assembly constituencies in the second and final phase of the Gujarat elections 2022 will take place on December 5. As many as 833 candidates are in the fray in the second leg, which will witness key contests among candidates including Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and Congress Rajya Sabha MP Amee Yagnik.
The Congress has renominated 11 sitting MLAs from the 32 seats in six districts of the region including Banaskantha, Patan, Mehsana, Sabarkantha, Aravalli and Gandhinagar. Meanwhile, the BJP has fielded only six out of its 14 sitting MLAs and brought in new candidates in the remaining Assembly seats.
Here’s a look at some of the key candidates contesting in the second phase of the Gujarat Assembly elections 2022.
Bhupendra Patel
In 2017, BJP leader and Chief Minister of Gujarat Bhupendra Patel contested and won from the Ghatlodia constituency in Ahmedabad despite being impacted by the ‘2015 Patidar Agitation’. He defeated Congress candidate Shashikant Bhurabhai with a margin of 1,17,000 votes. In the 2022 Gujarat Assembly elections, Patel will be contesting against Rajya Sabha MP Amee Yajnik of Congress and Vijay Patel of the AAP.
Hardik Patel
Patidar leader Hardik Patel will be contesting from the Viramgam Assembly constituency, which is part of Ahmedabad district. The region is considered to be immune to caste politics. The 29-year-old BJP candidate was born and brought up in Viramgam town and is a native of Chandranagar village. This is the maiden Assembly election for Patel, who switched from the Congress to BJP this year. He will be contesting against sitting Congress MLA Lakhabhai Bharwad.
Patel, a headstrong leader of the Patidar reservation, had once called Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a “publicity minister”. He was once known to be a constant and aggressive attacker of the BJP. However, unhappy with the Congress, Patel took a U-turn and joined the BJP in June this year. Since then, Patel said the government had helped the community with its 10 percent reservation for the EWS. He also praised the BJP for scrapping Article 370 and the construction of the Ramjanmanhoomi temple.
Lakhabhai Bharwad
Congress MLA Lakhabhai Bharwad will be contesting from his constituency Viramgam. In 2017, Bharwad defeated BJP's Tejashree Patel with more than 6,500 vote margin. Interestingly, Tejashree Patel was the MLA from the Congress from 2012 to 2017 and had switched party to join the BJP before the 2017 elections.
Kirit Rathod
Rathod is a popular Dalit activist from Viramgam and is set to give a tough to Hardik Patel and Lakhabhai Bharwad as an Independent candidate.
Jignesh Mewani
Jignesh Mewani is contesting as a Congress candidate from Vadgam constituency. The 41-year-old Dalit leader had contested elections as an Independent candidate in 2017. Mewani had won even as the Congress avoided putting up a candidate on that seat. In the run up to the Gujarat Assembly poll in 2017, Mewani had joined Hardik Patel and Alpesh Thakore in the campaign to target the BJP. While the two others are contesting on a BJP ticket this year, it remains to be seen to what extent Mewani is able to woo the Dalit votes.
Alpesh Thakore
Alpesh Thakore is contesting on a BJP ticket this time from the Gandhinagar South constituency. Like Hardik Patel, five years back, Thakore, the founder of the Kshatriya Thakor Sena and former Congress leader, was a spanner in BJP’s march to poll glory in Gujarat. Thakore’s popularity grew when he started an agitation to rid his community of liquor addiction. His stir targeted the state government and had impacted the vote count in North Gujarat in 2017. Thakore contested from the Radhanpur Assembly constituency on a Congress ticket and won. However, he joined the BJP in 2019 and is now a prominent OBC face for the party in the North Gujarat region.
"Alpesh can not only win the seat for us, but influence other adjoining seats in the region as well," News18 quoted a BJP leader in North Gujarat as saying.
