Vadodara: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Satish Patel won the Manjalpur Assembly by-election in Gujarat by a decisive margin on Monday, retaining the Vadodara seat for the party after securing 55,481 votes against 24,851 votes received by Congress candidate Bhikha Rabari.
The final result declared after 20 rounds of counting gave Patel a victory margin of 30,630 votes, extending the BJP’s hold over one of its traditional strongholds in Vadodara.
Counting began in the morning at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Makarpura, with Patel establishing an early lead from the opening rounds. By 9 a.m., he was ahead by 3,519 votes, and after 11 rounds his lead had widened to 19,368 votes.
The advantage continued to grow through the remaining rounds before the BJP candidate was formally declared elected.
The by-election was necessitated by the death of veteran BJP MLA and former state minister Yogesh Patel, whose passing vacated the seat.
Yogesh Patel had represented Manjalpur since the constituency was created after delimitation in 2008, having earlier won five consecutive elections from the Raopura constituency, making him an eight-time MLA over a political career spanning more than three decades.
Satish Patel’s candidature had drawn attention after the BJP surprisingly selected him.
A veteran party organiser from Vadodara’s Chhani area, he has served as a Vadodara Municipal Corporation councillor, chairman of the civic body’s Standing Committee, and former president of the Vadodara district BJP unit. He has also held positions in the cooperative sector, including chairman of the Chhani Nagarik Sahakari Bank and director of the Baroda Central Cooperative Bank and Vadodara Sugar Cooperative.
His Congress rival, Bhikha Rabari, is the vice-president of the Gujarat Congress and a former minister in the Madhavsinh Solanki government.
Polling for the by-election was held on July 30 and concluded largely peacefully, despite a brief altercation between BJP and Congress workers outside a polling station during the day.
The constituency recorded a final voter turnout of 37.50 per cent, considerably lower than the 60.15 per cent registered during the 2022 Gujarat Assembly election.
More than 2,19,000 electors were eligible to vote across 260 polling stations, where the Election Commission deployed 100 per cent webcasting, CCTV surveillance and other voter facilitation measures.
With the victory, the BJP retains the Manjalpur seat and continues its electoral dominance in the constituency, while Satish Patel succeeds the late Yogesh Patel as the constituency’s representative in the Gujarat Legislative Assembly.
(IANS)
