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High-octane campaigning for the first phase of the polls ended on Tuesday. Out of the 89 seats going to polls in the first phase, the BJP won 48 in the 2017 election, the Congress had won 40, while one seat was bagged by an independent candidate.
Apart from the BJP, Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), 36 other political outfits, including the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party (SP), Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) have also fielded candidates in various seats which will go to polls in the first phase.
The BJP and Congress are contesting in all the 89 seats while new poll entrant AAP is contesting in 88 seats, as its candidate from Surat East constituency had withdrawn his candidature.
As many as 339 independents are also in the fray in the first phase of polls. In other parties, the BSP has fielded 57 candidates, BTP 14 and CPI-M four candidates. Out of the total 788 candidates, 70 are women including nine fielded by the BJP, six by the Congress and five by the AAP.
Among the prominent candidates, AAP’s chief ministerial candidate Isudan Gadhvi is contesting from Khambhalia seat in Devbhumi Dwarka district of Saurashtra region, while AAP state unit president Gopal Italia is contesting from Katargam in Surat.
Rivaba Jadeja, the wife of cricketer Ravindra Jadeja, is contesting from Jamnagar (North), BJP MLAs Harsh Sanghavi and Purnesh Modi from different seats in Surat and five-time MLA Parshottam Solanki from Bhavnagar (Rural).
Sitting Congress MLAs like Lalit Kagathara, Lalit Vasoya, Rutvik Makwana and Mohammad Javed Pirzada are among the candidates in fray in the first phase from seats in Saurashtra region.
Seven-time MLA and veteran tribal leader Chhotu Vasava is contesting from Jhagadia in Bharuch.
Out of the total 4,91,35,400 registered voters in Gujarat, 2,39,76,670 are eligible to cast their votes in the first phase of the elections. These include 5.74 lakh voters in the age group of 18-19 years, and 4,945 above the age of 99 years.
The election body has set up 89 ‘model polling stations’, as many stations run by differently-abled people, 89 eco-friendly polling stations and 611 run by women. There are also 18 polling stations run by the youth.
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