Gujarat Elections 2022: Stage Set For First Phase Of Polls, Saurashtra-Kutch Region In Focus. Key Points

Here is a quick look at the top points around the first phase of polling in the Gujarat Assembly election 2022 that will be held on Thursday.

Congress' Rahul Gandhi, PM Modi and AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal

Source : PTI

The two-phase Gujarat Assembly Elections 2022 are scheduled to begin on Thursday, with 89 constituencies going to the polls in the first leg. The remaining 93 seats will be up for grabs on December 5.

Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been won by the BJP for a record six consecutive times but this time they are up against an aggressive AAP and a new look Congress under its president Mallikarjun Kharge.

In the 2017 election, the BJP won 99 seats in Gujarat and the Congress 77.

Here’s a quick look at the key points around the first phase of polling in the Gujarat Assembly election 2022:

1. Campaigning for the first phase ended at 5 pm, Tuesday. As many as 788 candidates, including 339 independents, are in the fray in the first phase.
2. The voting will be spread across 19 districts in the Saurashtra-Kutch coastal region and the southern parts of Gujarat. As many as 54 of the 89 constituencies are in the Saurashtra-Kutch region.
3. The polling of votes will begin at 8 am and end at 5 pm.
4. In 2017, the BJP had bagged 48 of the 89 constituencies going to the polls in the first phase. The Congress won 40 of the seats while the remaining one seat was one by an independent.
5. The BJP lost its hold over 12 seats in the Saurashtra-Kutch region in 2017, winning just 23 as opposed to 35 in 2012. The Congress nearly doubled its seat count, going up to 30 from 16 in 2012.
6. In South Gujarat, too, the Congress gained four seats to secure 10 in 2017. The BJP, meanwhile, lost three constituencies and had to be content with 25 seats. The BJP will be looking to hold onto its bastion in Surat in this region.
7. The BJP and the Congress have fielded candidates in all 89 seats while debutante AAP has decided to contest 88 seats. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is eyeing 57 candidates, while the Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) will field 14 candidates. The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has decided to put four of its leaders in the fray in four seats.
8. Of the 788 candidates vying for a place in the 182-seat Gujarat Assembly, 70 are women.  
9. In the first phase, 2,39,76,670 eligible voters will be able to cast their ballots.
10. the region, the Congress won 30 seats in 2017 compared to 16 in the 2012 election. The BJP, on the other hand, was reduced to 23 seats in 2017 as against 35 won by it in the previous election.

(With inputs from PTI.)