PM Modi’s incredible work ethics and his reassuring persona have set the bar so high that opposition parties are nowhere in contention, barring the contrived media hype they manufacture. The counting of votes for 182 Assembly seats in Gujarat was held today.
The polls were held in two phases with 89 seats voting on December 1, while the second phase of polling was held on December 5 in 92 Assembly segments. Gujarat registered a voter turnout of 64.33% for the recently-concluded elections, a drop of over 4% compared with the turnout registered in the last Assembly polls in 2017.
For the BJP, this is a seventh consecutive victory for the party in the native state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The party’s vote share also jumped to 52.5%. The BJP’s victory has also battered the previous Congress record of winning 149 seats in 1985 during the Madhavsinh Solanki era of Gujarat politics.
The BJP’s stupendous electoral performance stunned the opposition and even the party’s own members, sweeping cities and rural districts as triangular contests involving the BJP, the Congress and new entrant, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), catapulted the ruling party to power with unprecedented numbers.
Prime Minister Modi remained successful in invoking Gujarati asmita (pride) with a number of developmental works, which the state has witnessed in the past two decades under the rule of the BJP.
He had also played on the slogan “Aa Gujarat mai banvyu chhe (I made this Gujarat)” in his first election rally after the declaration of polls in Kaparda, Valsad. Later, the party launched “Agresar Gujarat” (Gujarat ahead) campaign and sought public suggestions on the manifesto for the upcoming election.