BJP stakes claim at prestigious Bhavnagar West constituency

Gujarat Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Jitu Vaghani won the prestigious Bhavnagar West constituency, beating Congress's Dilipsinh Gohil with an whopping margin of 53,893 in the Gujarat Assembly election.

Congress' Dilipsinh Gohil was far behind the BJP state President Jitu Vaghani in this Patidar-dominated seat

Bhavnagar is one of the most important seats in the recent assembly elections as the prestige of both the leading parties was on stake.

The Bhavnagar West seat was earlier known as Bhavnagar South. In 2007, Congress stalwart Shaktisinh Gohil defeated Vaghani by a margin of 7,000 votes here.

After delimitation in 2012, the seat was renamed Bhavnagar West and Vaghani was successful in snatching the seat from the Congress. Riding on the support of Patidars and other communities, Vaghani had won by a margin of over 50,000 votes.

This assembly seat represents Bhavnagar Taluka (Part) Villages - Nari, Vartej (CT) Bhavnagar Taluka (Part) - Bhavnagar Municipal Corporation (Part) Ward No. - 1, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17.

The constituency has a total of 2,41,785 voters, including 1,25,905 males and 1,15,854 females. Of the total number of voters, around 54,300 votes belong to the Koli community, 36,000 to the Patels, 23,000 to the Kshatriyas and 12,000 to the Vania community. There are 14,000 Scheduled Caste voters, 22,000 minority community voters and 50,200 OBC voters.