Thakore, Pandya may eat into Advani's votes

The Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani is the most favourite candidate to win the Gandhinagar parliamentary seat. Though the party has been winning the seat for over a decade, the margin of victory for the BJP stalwart might be less than what was thought earlier.

Advani had defeated the Congress candidate and former chief election commissioner T N Seshan with margin of over 1.88 lakh votes in the 1999 general elections, securing over 61 per cent of the votes polled.

However, this time around casteism, low voter turn out and the Vitthalbhai Pandya factor are set to play a major role in the Gandhinagar. The BJP has been winning the Gandhinagar seat since 1989, but the margin of votes for the saffron party has been on the decline.

BJP won the 1989 election with a margin of over 2.68 lakh votes, but the margin stood reduced to 1.89 lakh in the 1999 elections. It is expected that in the current election the margin may go down further.

The Congress has fielded Gabhaji Thakore against Advani, in a bid to lure the Thakores and Rajputs from the villages and semi-urban areas of Gandhinagar. The Thakores have a sizable presence in rural areas of the constituency.

Moreover, the party expects to cash in on the charisma of Shankarsinh Vaghela. The part thinks that Vaghela will bring in votes from native Vasaniya.

" Residents of Vasania village are not bothered by political parties. All that matters is our leader Shankarsinhji. If he is in the Congress, we will vote for him and if he joins BJP we will still vote for him," said a Vasania resident.

Vasania, along with the villages of Unawa, Pimplaj, Pethapur and other surrounding villages are dominated by Rajputs and Thakurs and they seem to have preferred Thakore.

"The Congress will win more seats than BJP in todays election, including the Gandhinagar seat. Last time BJP won only because it resorted to booth capturing. But this time the election officers are strict and BJP can not repeat its victory. Moreover, the people of the state are fed up with the BJP government, which was behind the massacre of innocent lives couple of years back," said Vaghela.

The independent candidate Vitthalbhai Pandya and the father of the slain Haren Pandya, who is contesting from Gandhinagar constituency, has been a major embarrassment for the saffron party.

Though Pandya may not win the election, he is definitely going to divide BJP's vote. But Pandya was confident about is victory. "I am confident of winning this election because people have welcomed me warmly and they are tired of Modi and Advani.

Coming from Delhi, Advani is an outsider and people of the state do not want an outsider to represent them. People have realised the blunder they committed by voting for Advani in the last elections and this time they are going to vote for me," Pandya added.

To make the situation worse, the Bahujan Samaj Party has fielded Medipallai Laxminarayan Narsaiya to tap the dalits votes. Apart from Mohammad Salim of Samajwadi Party and Dipak Gopaldas Patel from Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha, there are eight independent candidates.