Ravnus hold the key
LOK SABHA CONSTITUENCY WATCH/BANASKANTHA
| While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is fielding its sitting member of Parliament (MP) and Chaudhari leader Haribhai Chaudhari, the Congress is yet to decide its candidate for the seat. The Congress' contenders for the Banaskantha Lok Sabha seat are Gadhvi and former MP Harisinh Chavda. |
| The caste factor will play a crucial role in the election outcome here as it the "Ravnu" (group of village leaders) that decides for whom the whole village will vote. |
| This is a tradition prevalent among the Thakors and Chaudharis, the two dominant communities in the constituency. This tradition is also known as 'Khatla Parishad' in Banaskantha's folk life. |
| According to the castewise breakup, the Banaskantha parliamentary constituency comprises over 35 per cent Chaudharis and 25 per cent Thakors. The rest is divided among the Lohanas and other smaller communities. |
| The constituency has been dominated by non-Congress candidates in the last five elections. Only the 1996 Lok Sabha elections B K Gadhvi of the Congress won from here and that too because an independent candidate of the Thakor community cornered 48,859 votes. Gadhvi won by 11,960 votes, beating Harisinh Chavda of the BJP. Gadhvi got 44.58 per cent votes and Chavda 42.06 per cent votes. 10.29 percent of the opposition votes went to independent candidate Keshaji Chauhan of the Thakor community. |
| In other recent Lok Sabha elections, Jayantilal Shah of the Janata Dal (VP Singh) defeated B K Gadhvi of the Congress by more than 2.5 lakh votes. Shah got 70.09 per cent of the votes while Gadhvi won 25.42 per cent votes. |
| In 1991, Chavda Harisinh of the BJP snatched the seat from Jayantilal Shah by a margin of 52042 votes. This time Shah contested on a Congress ticket. Chavda got 53.66 per cent votes and Shah bagged 41.35 per cent. |
| In 1998, Harisinh Chavda defeated Gadhvi by 84,755 votes. Chavda got 53.14 per cent of the votes while Gadhvi got 41.37 per cent votes. |
| In the 1999 elections, Harisinh Chavda went to the Shankersinh Vaghela-led Rashtriya Janata Party (which later merged with the Congress) and the BJP nominated Chaudhari candidate Haribhai Chaudhari. Chaudhari defeated the Congress' B K Gadhvi by a margin of 25,975 votes, but there was a difference of just 4.38 per cent of votes between the two candidates. |
| The district panchayat and all taluka panchayats are controlled by the Congress. Among the seven Assembly constituencies in Banaskantha, Palanpur, Dhanera, Radhanpur (Sabarkantha district) have BJP MLAs while Deesha, Vav, Kankrej and Deodar have Congress representatives. |
| The Radhanpur Assembly seat from where former Gujarat chief minister Shankersinh Vaghela contested the bi-elections was snatched by the BJP's Shankar Chaudhuri from the Congress in the last Assembly polls by a margin of over 12,000 votes. |