Uphill task for Cong in Ahmedabad

LS CONSTITUENCY WATCH

Considered to be one of the safest seats for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Ahmedabad parliamentary constituency will witness a battle between Union Minister of State for Defence, Harin Pathak and Rajkumar Gupta of the Congress.

Gupta is the city Congress president and is known more as an organisational man than a public figure.

So confident the BJP is about the Ahmedabad seat that the party predicts certain win for Pathak even if he did not campaign.

On the other hand Congress has not lost all hopes. "Our vote share climbed up considerably in the last election although our candidate lost the contest. We expect to spring a surprise this time," said a party spokesman.

BJP has been winning the seat for the last five elections. In the last Assembly election, the party has won five out of the seven constituencies, - Naroda, Kalupur, Rakhiyal, Shaher Kotda, Khadia, Jamalpur and Maninagar - that fall under the Ahmedabad Parliamentary constituency.

The Congress has retained two. The Kalupur and Jamalpur assembly constituencies, which the Congress won during the last election, are dominated by members of the minority community and are considered to be Congress strongholds.

BJP sitting MP, Harin Pathak, has won the Ahmedabad seat five times since 1989.

In the last election, Pathak defeated Girish Dani of the Congress. While Pathak polled 53 per cent, Dani secured 43 per cent of the votes.

Earlier in the 1998 general election too, Harin Pathak had won the Ahmedabad seat at the expense of Haroobhai Mehta of the Congress.

While Pathak polled 55 per cent of the votes, Mehta secured 34 per cent of the votes.

Pathak defeated Congress' Irshad Mirza in 1996. He had defeated Congressmen Maganbhai Barot (in 1991) and Surendra Rajput (1989) in his complete domination of the constituency.

Though the Congress has not won the seat since 1989, Haroobhai Mehta had won the seat in the 1984. While Maganbhai Barot won in 1980, Ehsan Jaffri of the Congress had won the seat in 1977.