RAJKOT: It was a rather disastrous electoral debut for four key persons associated with the
Khodaldham Temple Trust, the influential socio-religious organization of the Leuva Patels.
Three trustees and another key Khodaldham men were humbled by huge margins on the four seats that they had contested — three on
Congress tickets and one Gopal
Vastarpara as
BJP candidate.
The trustees — Dinesh Chovatiya (Rajkot south), Ravi Ambaliya (Jetpur) and Vastarpara (Lathi) — and another key associate Mitul Donga (Rajkot east) had thrown their hat into the ring but found little favour with their community members who are in huge numbers in these constituencies.
While the temple trust had distanced itself from officially supporting them, the trust chairman Naresh Patel's son
Shivraj had openly urged people to vote for them just a day before polling on December 9. "I want change," Shivraj had then said.
A senior Congress leader in the city said, "The message that Patidars are with the Congress has worked against these four men who were banking on votes of other upper castes too besides their own community."
Chovatiya, however, cried foul over the loss and blamed the EVMs. "In four metro cities of Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot and Vadodara, BJP has tampered with EVMs. Even if I were to lose, the margin of loss wouldn't have been so huge."
Representative image
