As the first phase of the Gujarat elections are over on the 9 the of December, let’s take a look at the final report on the polling.
Amidst enhanced time provided to enable voting, an approximately 68 per cent of the 2.12 crore voters cast their franchise to lock the fate of 977 candidates for the 89 seats that went to polls in the first phase in Gujarat on Saturday. Official sources said that the polling was by largely peaceful. These were the voting figures at the time of going to press and polling percentage is expected to compare favorably with the 2012 figure of 70.7 per cent on completion of the entire process of voting. Though the slated voting time was the usual 8 am to 5 pm, the Election Commission permitted those who had already queued up to cast their votes even thereafter. Reports of malfunctioning EVMs were received but these were swiftly replaced before voting, official Election Commission sources said.
Senior Congress leader Arjun Modhvadia complained of possible EVM tampering at three polling booths in a Muslim-dominated area of his Porbandar constituency claiming that some machines were found to be connected to external devices through Bluetooth. “We detected that EVMs at three polling booths in Memanwada were connected to external devices through Bluetooth. When the Bluetooth of a mobile is turned on, a device named ECO105 is shown as available,” Modhvadia claimed.
According to the Congress leader, chips fitted in the EVMs appear to be programmable using Bluetooth and this raises the possibility of tampering. A voting system should be immune to such connectivity,” he said pointing out that he had registered a complaint with the district election officials who visited the booth and saw the display. BB Swain, Election chief for the state said that due inquiries have been carried out and that there is no truth in the apprehension.
Meanwhile, the highest voter turnout was reported from Navsari in South Gujarat and Morbi in Saurashtra, both clocking 75 per cent voter turnout. Kutch brought up the rear with 63 per cent.
Of the 89 seats that went to polls on Saturday, Saurashtra makes for 48, Kutch six and South Gujarat 35. Of these BJP bagged 63, Congress 24 and NCP and JD-U one each in 2012 Vidhan Sabha elections.
Then, of course, there were the usual claims and counter-claims from contending parties with BJP claiming a big win and the Congress doing likewise. This will be a landslide victory for the BJP said Gujarat in-charge, finance minister Arun Jaitley while Congress leader Paresh Dhanani said that this election will prove a turning point for the Congress.
Among the important places that went to polls on Saturday includes Surat, which accounts for 16 seats. Last time BJP had cornered 15 of these. This time, Surat had witnessed several agitations, including those by Patel community and against GST by textile traders. Congress is hoping to retain its Mandvi (ST) seat here and make a dent in this BJP bastion, as Patels hold sway in four city constituencies in Surat.
Bharuch, the hometown of Ahmed Patel, political advisor to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi also went to polls for five of its seats, including tribal strongman Chhotu Vasava of Bharatiya Tribal Party. Vasava is fighting to retain this seat for the seventh time.
In Saurashtra, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani is locked in a fight to retain Rajkot (West) seat held by his party for last 32 years. He is contesting against the richest candidate in the fray and Congressman Indranil Rajyaguru, who specially urged his party top brass to give him the opportunity to take on the chief minister. The profile of this constituency is such that Karnataka Governor and once legislator from this constituency, Vajubhai Vala, came down to vote. The fate of BJP chief Jitu Vaghani too is in the balance from Bhavnagar (West) constituency.
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