BJP’s ‘toor dal’ king 2nd to win with record margin in Anand

Vadodara/ Anand: Congress is so humbled in its safest seat in Gujarat that BJP candidate Mitesh Patel (Bakabhai) has surpassed all the victory margins in Anand district since 1980.
Since 1957, when Anand Lok Sabha seat witnessed its first poll battle, the highest victory margin that the seat had registered was 1,14,636 votes that veteran Congress leader and freedom fighter Ishvar Chavda, had registered in 1980.
Chavda was father-in-law of Gujarat’s former chief minister Madhavsinh Solanki and grandfather of Madhavsinh’s son Bharatsinh Solanki, the two times Anand MP and former union minister, who was in direct contest against Patel to wrest power back for Congress. His grandson Amit Chavda, Anklav’s Congress MLA, is currently Congress chief in Gujarat.
The victory margin of poll debutant Mitesh – 1,97,718 - is higher than that of Chavda in terms of absolute numbers but falls short of nearly 10 % when it comes to percentage of the total votes exercised during the polls.
Like Mitesh, Chavda was also contesting his first Lok Sabha poll in Anand in 1980 when he had bagged 2,56,897 votes (60.98 % vote share) of the total votes while Janata Party’s candidate Dilipsinh Mahida had bagged 1,42,636 votes (33.86 % vote share) in the elections.
The size of the elector then was 6,54,455 while the general election in that year had witnessed 66.17% voting with 4,33,034 voters turning up to exercise their voting right.
After 39 years, the voting percentage that Anand registered during this general election was almost same – 66.79% - as 11,05,587 out of total electoral of 16,55,342 had turned up to cast their vote last month.
The ‘toor dal’ king bagged 6,33,097 votes (57.1 % vote share) in his favour defeating Solanki, the former chief of Gujarat Congress, who ended up with 4,35,379 (39.27% vote share).
In terms of percentage, Mitesh’s victory margin stands at 17.83 % but it is still less by nearly 10 % when Chavda had won by margin of 27.12 %. Interestingly, it was the same year that BJP was founded as party.