BJP to campaign for Gujarat Assembly elections in a phased manner

By Aashique Hussain
New Delhi [India], October 14 : Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be campaigning for the Gujarat Assembly elections in a phased manner by assigning leaders district-wise and seat-wise responsibilities, sources said.
The state with 182 assembly seats has been divided into four phases namely, North region, West region and Central Region and Saurashtra.
As per the sources, the state Ministers, MLAs, former MLAs and leaders from the RSS background have been given the region and district-wise responsibilities. Leaders from Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have been assigned the Saurashtra, West, North and Central region respectively.
Scheduled Tribes hold great significance in several seats adjoining Madhya Pradesh. Looking at this, two leaders from Madhya Pradesh have been assigned two seats each. They will be sharing the reports with both the state unit as well as the central leadership, the sources said.
37 seats of the seven districts in the Central Gujarat region have been assigned to former BJP MLAs and ministers. These 37 seats are currently ruled by BJP only. It includes seats like Dahod, Mahisagar, Mehsana, and Baroda urban and rural.
Minister in the Madhya Pradesh government Narottam Mishra has been assigned the Banaskantha seat. Other than him, Arvind Singh Bhadoriya and Indra Singh Parmar have been assigned the seats of Bharuch and Kheda respectively, the sources said.
Migrants from Rajasthan hold great significance in the North Gujarat region, as 18-20 per cent of the voters in the state are migrants from Rajasthan.
The nine seats across the 43 districts include Kutch, Bhuj, Gandhinagar rural and urban, Banaskantha, Patan, Ahemdabad North and South, Modasa, Mehsana, and Sabarkantha.
Looking at this, BJP has assigned the responsibility of the region to leaders from Rajasthan, including the senior Rajasthan Minister Sushil Katara.
As per the sources, the party has appointed two in charge in each district supervising two in charge in every seat. Also, an in-charge from Uttar Pradesh has also been appointed to supervise them.
Three senior ministers from the Yogi Adityanath led-Uttar Pradesh government have been assigned the responsibility of the seats currently held by Congress.
As per the sources, Minister Swatantra Dev Singh has been assigned the districts of Ambasa, Mandvi, Bhuj, Anjar, Gandhidham and Rapar. Rajya Sabha MP Laxmikant Bajpai has been made the in-charge of the Junagarh constituency.
In the last Assembly election, Congress won on Junagarh, Visavadar, Mangrol and Manavadar, whereas BJP was only able to win on the Keshod seat.
Minister of State JPS Rathore has been assigned the responsibility of Balasinor, Lunawada and Santrampur (ST) seats of the Mahisagar district.
In the last elections, BJP won the Santrampur seat, and Congress won the Balanisor seat, while the Lunawada seat was won by an independent candidate.
Minister of State Dayashankar Singh has been assigned the responsibility of Rajkot district which include the seats of Gramya (SC), Jasdan, Gondal, Jetpu and Dhoraji. Rajya Sabha MP Vijaypal Sing Tomar has been assigned Somnath, Talala, Kodinar (SC) and Una seats.
In the last elections, all four seats were won by Congress.
BJP is in power in Gujarat for the last 24 years. Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself was the Chief Minister for 12 years, 227 days. Before him, Keshubhai Patel was the CM of the state for 216 days. Modi was followed by Anandiben Patel, Vijay Rupani and the current CM Bhupendra Patel.
Unlike previous elections, this year Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is also fighting the election with full might, led by Delhi CM and AAP National convener Arvind Kejriwal, which has made it a triangular contest.
However, as per the surveys, the main competition in the election is still between BJP and Congress only.
Earlier today, the ECI held a press conference for the election schedule announcement of Assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh.
However, The ECI did not announce the dates of the Gujarat Assembly polls which were also expected to be held by the end of this year.
The term of the Gujarat Assembly ends on February 18, 2023.