Rajkot: In a rare development, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured a win in one of Gujarat’s 26 Lok Sabha seats, two weeks before they were to go to the polls on 7 May. Mukesh Dalal, BJP candidate from Surat, has been elected to the Lower House unopposed.
This, after eight candidates — seven independents and one from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), withdrew their nominations. The nomination of Congress’s candidate for the seat, Nilesh Kumbhani, was rejected after three of his proposers claimed they hadn’t signed his form. It was the same story for the party’s alternative candidate from Surat, Suresh Padsala, whose proposer denied signing his nomination form.
Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and state BJP chief C.R. Paatil congratulated Mukesh Dalal on winning the seat unopposed.
“The first lotus has bloomed in Gujarat and India.” said Dalal, thanking Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Patel and Paatil. “The result which would have come on 4 June has been made available today, on 22 April, it’s a historic moment,” Gujarat BJP spokesperson Yamal Vyas told ThePrint.
The Congress, meanwhile, has accused the BJP of ‘orchestrating’ the win through ‘match-fixing’.
“Democracy is in danger,” said Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh in a post on X. “The distress and anger faced by MSME owners and businesspeople in Modi’s Anyay Kaal has spooked the BJP so badly that they are attempting to “match-fix” Surat Lok Sabha,” wrote Ramesh, the party’s in-charge of communications.
Democracy is under threat. Aap chronology samajhiye:
• Surat District Election Officer rejects @INCIndia’s candidate for Surat Lok Sabha, Nilesh Kumbhani’s nomination for “discrepancies in verification of signatures of three proposers”
• On similar grounds, officials reject… https://t.co/uEnLeCGOG7
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) April 22, 2024
Dhansukhbhai Rajput, president of the Surat City district Congress Committee, told ThePrint that the “entire machinery” of the BJP was behind this uncontested election in Surat.
Dismissing these charges, the BJP said that Surat is the party’s safest seat and such allegations merely reflect the “frustration of the Congress”.
BSP candidate from the seat Pyarelal Bharti, was the last to withdraw his nomination Monday. This, after reports surfaced of both the Congress and the BJP trying to reach out to him for support. Other candidates who withdrew their nomination are Soheil Sheikh, Jayeshbhai Mevada Bharatbhai Prajapati, Ajitsinh Bhupatsinh Umat, Kishorbhai Dayani, Baraiya Rameshbhai Parsottambhai and Abdul Hamid Khan.
The BJP had fielded Mukesh Dalal in Surat in the place of its three-time MP & MoS Railways Darshana Jardosh, who has represented the seat since 2009. Dalal is also general secretary of Surat BJP and a managing committee member of the Surat District Cricket Association (SDCA). He is also a former standing committee chairman of Surat Municipal Corporation.
This was supposed to be his first Lok Sabha election.
Surat Lok Sabha constituency has seven assembly segments — Surat East, Surat North, Surat West, Olpad, Varachha Road, Karanj and Katargam. It has been a BJP bastion since 1989. Party strongman Kashiram Rana held the seat for the BJP from 1989 till 2004. He would later go on to form the Gujarat Parivartan Party with Keshubhai Patel.
Post 2004, Jardosh represented Surat, until now.
The seat was also represented by former prime minister Morarji Desai from 1957 to 1977.
This is arguably the first time a candidate has been elected unopposed as an MP from Gujarat since the state’s formation. One recorded instance was the election of Major General M.S. Himmatsinhji Jadeja from Halar, Saurashtra, in the first general election.
Jadeja was also the first Deputy Defence Minister of India and later served as first LG of Himachal Pradesh from 1952 to 1954.
Saurashtra was a separate state from 1948 until its merger into Bombay state in 1956. This was also the time when India had double-member constituencies, which was later abolished in 1961.
The last time a candidate was elected unopposed to the Lower House was in 2012 when Dimple Yadav of the Samajwadi Party (SP) won a bypoll in Kannauj following the withdrawal of two of her contenders.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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