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Journalism of Courage
VADODARA, Jan 5: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) on Tuesday recorded a morale boosting victory with its candidate Ranchhod Rathwa defeating Congress candidate Jayesh Tadvi by a slender margin of 123 in the by-poll to ward number 26 seat. The seat had fallen vacant following the death of BJP councillor Ramdev Vasava.
Of the total 13,084 valid votes, the BJP secured 6,414 and the Congress 6,291 votes. RJP candidate Satish Vasava bagged 379 votes.
The victory for the BJP could not have come at a better time when it was trying to impress upon the masses that is was still popular among them. The party had united after it was defeated by the Congress in the ward 10 by-poll to the women’s seat a few months ago.
The campaigning saw both the parties sending their rank and file in the constituency, and the VMC deserted with councillors campaigning.
While Standing Committee chairman N V Patel and councillor Yogendra Sukhadia attributed the victory to the civic works carried out in the city, a few BJP councillors asking anonymity admitted that the RJP’s presence had cut into the Congress votes. “Our party benefited,” they said. Patel, however, said there was a need to improve performance in civic works.
Former Congress MP and councillor Satyajit Gaekwad described the loss as a shock saying that for the first time, youths of 150-odd societies of the 430 societies had said that they would support Tadvi on a personal basis. He said probably the Congress had underestimated RJP’s presence.
Gaekwad said the result was misleading as the victory was only by a thin margin.
According to sources, an incident in which a youth was arrested by the police for disturbing the BJP’s meeting also went against the Congress.
While two heavyweights Madhu Shrivastav and Shailesh Mehta alias Sotta of the Congress also campaigned for their respective parties, the SRP was deployed on Sunday to prevent any untoward incident.
