Assembly Elections 2017: What the EVMs Hold in Store for Rahul Gandhi and the BJP

Votes will be counted in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh from 8 in the morning today. These were meant to be state elections but at least Gujarat has turned into a battleground where both parties have in

Written by: Prasad Sanyal

Updated: December 18, 2017, 7:26 AM IST

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Votes will be counted in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh from 8 in the morning today. These were meant to be state elections but at least Gujarat has turned into a battleground where both parties have indulged in a no-holds barred campaign.

A defeat for the BJP in Gujarat will have dramatic repercussions but all exit polls point to a comfortable victory for the party. The question is by how much then, unless the pollsters have got it way off the mark. The results, especially in Gujarat will also set the tone of Rahul Gandhi’s presidency of the Congress party. The pundits will then be reading between the lines and dissecting the victory margins, alliances, caste equations and what have you to analyse how these results will impact the main political parties in the run up to 2019. [Also read: Fake Election Commission Letters on EVM Tampering go Viral]

The Gujarat Assembly has 182 seats and the BJP needs just 92 to form the government. Most exit polls have indicated that the party may do as well as it did in the 2012 Assembly elections where it won 115 seats. The results will have ramifications on the 2019 Lok Sabha elections — this would be the second big win for the Bharatiya Janta Party this year after its sweep in Uttar Pradesh. The win would give the BJP a record fifth term in Gujarat – a state that it has held since 1995. [Also read: Fake Election Commission Letters on EVM Tampering go Viral]

Gujarat is also being seen by pundits as a battle for pride for Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was chief minister of the state from 2002 to 2014. The Prime Minister addressed 34 rallies in the state and hit the campaign trail hard taking on Congress President Rahul Gandhi in a toe-to-toe battle.

One of the key points of the Gujarat polls was the Congress alliance with Hardik Patel, a 24-year-old catapulted into the national discourse by the Patidar agitation last year. When votes are counted today, one of the points of interest would be to see if the alliance managed to dent the BJP’s traditional vote bank in the Patel community. [Also read: Gujarat And Himachal Results: Counting to Begin at 8 am]

It also remains to be seen if the party’s alliances – with Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani, who is contesting as an independent from Vadgam in North Gujarat and inducting Alpesh Thakor, an influential OBC leader who is the party’s candidate from Radhanpur in Patan – has paid dividends.

In the melee of Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh seems to have been sidelined. Here the Congress chief minister Virbhadra Singh has been battling corruption charges and, all exit polls point to a comfortable win for the BJP. Himachal Pradesh has 68 assembly seats and most pollsters have predicted the BJP will win between 45 and 50 seats.