Jasdan bypoll: BJP's Bavaliya takes lead over Cong's Nakiya

BJP candidate Kunvarji Balavliya was leading by more than 10,700 votes over his nearest rival, Congress nominee Avsar Nakiya, in the Jasdan assembly bypoll in Gujart where counting of votes is underway, officials said.

At the end of the seventh round of counting, Bavaliya had secured 35,192 votes, which was 10,710 more than Nakiya's 24,482, the election commission officials said.

Polling for the Jasdan assembly seat in Rajkot district was held on December 20 and a voter turnout of 71.27 per cent was recorded.

The by-poll has become a battle of prestige between the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress in the wake of the latter winning the just held assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

The by-election was necessitated after Bavaliya, an influential Koli community leader who had won the seat on a Congress ticket in 2017, resigned from the party and also the assembly, and joined the BJP.

Bavaliya, who quit as an assembly member on July 2, was made a Cabinet minister in the BJP government the same day.

The saffron party fielded him for the by-election from Jasdan, which has a sizeable Koli population.

According to rules, he has to get elected to the assembly within six months of resigning to continue as a minister.

Nakiya is a Rajkot district panchayat member who once worked closely with Bavaliya in the Congress.

While Nakiya is contesting an assembly poll for the first time, Bavaliya had won from the seat, which has 2.32 lakh registered voters, five times in the past as the Congress candidate - in 1995, 1998, 2002, 2007 and 2017.

Since the formation of Gujarat in 1960, the BJP has won Jasdan only once - in the by-election of 2009 when Bavaliya vacated the seat after being elected to the Lok Sabha from Rajkot.

Apart from Bavaliya and Nakiya, six other candidates are also in the fray.