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Updated: Oct 24, 2019 14:54 IST

The Congress party on Thursday won the Bayad assembly seat and snatched the BJP stronghold of Tharad in Gujarat, where by-polls were held on six constituencies on Monday.

Congress’ Patel Jasubhai Shivabhai Patel defeated Dhavalsinh Zala, the close associate of party rebel Alpesh Thakor, in Bayad assembly segment in Arvalli district by a thin margin of 700 votes.

And in Tharad in Banaskantha district, Gulabsinh Pirabhai Rajput of the Congress won against the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) Jivraj Patel.

In Amraiwadi seat of Ahmedabad, Congress’ Dharmendrabhai Shantilal Patel is leading over the BJP’s Jagdish Patel by more than 2000 votes.

The BJP’s candidate Alpesh Thakor is trailing by more than 8000 votes in the Radhanpur seat in Patan district against Congress’ Raghu Desai.

Ajmalji Thakor, the BJP candidate from Kheralu in Mehsana district, is leading over the Congress’ Babuji Thakor by more than 29,000 votes.

In Lunawada (Mahisagar) seat, BJP candidate Jigneshkumar Sevak is leading over Congress candidate Gulabsinh Somsinh Chauhan by 13,915 votes.

The by-polls were held in Tharad, Lunawada, Kheralu and Amraiwadi after the sitting BJP MLAs vacated their assembly seats after they won in the April-May Lok Sabha elections.

The by-polls were necessitated in Radhanpur and Bayad after their respective sitting Congress MLAs Alpesh Thakor and Dhavalsinh Zala joined the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

A prominent Other Backward Class (OBC) leader and a former MLA from Radhanpur, Alpesh Thakor had said that he was “ignored and insulted” in the Congress as he resigned in April.

Both Thakor and Zala had quit as MLAs on July 5, just ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections in Gujarat. They joined the BJP in the same month, apparently after voting against Congress candidates in the Rajya Sabha by-polls.

Gujarat’s chief electoral officer S Murali Krishna said more than 600 government employees are counting the votes from 8am in the constituencies spread across six districts.

An average 53.67% voter turnout was recorded in the by-elections held on Monday in Tharad seat, Radhanpur in Patan, Kheralu in Mehsana, Bayad, Amraiwadi in Ahmedabad and Lunawada in Mahisagar district.

“Each counting centre will have three-layer security, comprising personnel of the local police, State Reserve Police and Central Armed Police,” election officials said.

The BJP’s campaign for all the six seats saw the invocation of abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and the Ram temple in Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya.

The Congress, which has seen 10 of its members defect in the past two years, is eyeing OBC and Dalit votes, especially in the north Gujarat seats of Radhanpur, Bayad and Tharad.

The BJP will hope to make inroads in north Gujarat with the help of Thakor and Zala, who came to limelight with an anti-addiction campaign and anti-Patidar agitation for OBC quota and won 2017 assembly polls on Congress tickets.

The Bhartiya Tribal Party has two MLAs in the current assembly and the NCP has one, Jignesh Mevani is an Independent while three seats - Dwarka, Talala and Morva Hadaf- at present are suspended.

The BJP currently has 100 MLAs in the 183-member assembly—its thinnest majority since 1995—and the Congress is down to 69 seats from the 79 it won in the assembly polls in 2017.