The Bhartiya Janta Party on Tuesday, 23 February put up its best performance in two decades by sweeping all six municipal corporations in the Gujarat Urban local body elections. The ruling party won comfortable majorities in Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Jamnagar, and Bhavnagar corporations.
And the numbers speak for themselves. BJP improved its 2015 tally of 389 seats out of total of 572, to as many as 483 out of 576 this time. However, on the other end, the Congress party took a nosedive this election, from 174 seats in 2015 to 55 in 2021.
While the BJP did cement its domination in urban Gujarat, what also gave a jolt to both the BJP and Congress was the performance by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) who won 27 seats in Surat,
AAP’s victory in Surat was so staggering for a debutant party that it even led to BJP Gujarat President CR Patil terming AAP’s victory as a “nail in the golden plate”.
AAP has been quietly expanding its footprint at a national level through local body pools, registering wins in Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, and Punjab.
Delhi Chief Minister and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal congratulated the people of Gujarat on Twitter for “the beginning of a new politics”, and is also expected to arrive in Surat to participate in a victory rally on 26 February.
In today’s episode, we will go through what was exactly at stake in this election, what led to AAP making in-roads in Gujarat and how important is their win? And does the Congress’ loss mean an end of a support in the state?
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