Gujarat: AAP gets just one seat, but carves out 21% of votes in GMC elections

AHMEDABAD: Unlike the Surat Municipal Corporation, where it bagged 27 seats when elections were held earlier this year, the Aam Aadmi Party won just one seat in the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation, but inflicted heavy damage on the Congress, by picking up 21% of the votes cast for the state capital’s civic body.
Significantly, AAP’s remarkable vote share had opposite effects on the prospects of the BJP and Congress.

While it reduced the Congress’s tally to just two seats in the GMC, it catapulted the BJP’s seats to 41.
The Congress’ vote share, which was an impressive 46.93% in 2016, fell by a massive 18.96 percentage points to 27.97% this time.
AAP’s vote share in its maiden entry in Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation election was 21.3%, directly cutting the vote share of Congress and smaller parties.
In at least four wards, AAP panels bagged more votes than Congress candidates. These were Mahatma Mandir, Ambapur-Sargasan, Kudasan and Koba. In three other wards, three AAP candidates had more votes than the Congress candidates. In Koba, the four AAP candidates got over 16,000 votes while the Congress candidates got only 6,069 votes. One Congress candidate in the ward got only 900 votes.
A BJP leader said the party increased its tally from 16 to 41 despite a marginal 1.73% increase in vote share. The leader said that with opposition votes divided between Congress and AAP, the BJP bagged many seats. “The triangular contest between BJP, Congress and AAP ensured that BJP was the sole gainer in terms of seats,” the leader said.
AAP leader Isudan Gadhvi said, “Our vote share of 22% was impressive given that we campaigned only for 15 days. The people of Gandhinagar wanted change, but we failed to ensure that turnout was high. The people wanted a change from BJP and Congress.”