Gujarat assembly elections 2022 news | Capital gain: High-stakes fight reaches its climax

Among the exciting and closely watched contests in the 2022 poll will be those on the five assembly seats of Gandhinagar district, particularly Gandhinagar South. In 2017, the BJP had won Dahegam and Gandhinagar South while Congress had emerged victorious in Gandhinagar North, Kalol, and Mansa. In 2012, though the BJP had won both Gandhinagar South and North seats while the Congress won Dahegam, Kalol and Mansa.
The BJP has never lost a parliamentary election from Gandhinagar since 1989. Union home minister Amit Shah represents the constituency in the Lok Sabha. The pressing issues in Gandhinagar district include bad roads in villages, waterlogging and poor drainage network in Chandkheda and Motera, and poor education infrastructure and slow economic development in Mansa, not to mention the stirs led by thousands of employees over pending demands.
The election will also decide the fate of BJP’s Gandhinagar South candidate Alpesh Thakor who is pitted against Himanshu Patel of Congress and Dolat Patel of the AAP. The seat has nearly 2. 4 lakh voters with 65,000 Thakors and 35,000 Patidars. In 2019, two years after he won the Radhanpur seat, he left the Congress and switched allegiance to the BJP and lost the bypoll. This time, despite opposition from the local cadre, the BJP has chosen him over two-term sitting MLA Shambhuji Thakor.