Why AAP's wipeout is the highlight of Gandhinagar polls

Amid the high-octane protests in Delhi and scattered outpourings in some other cities, including Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, the BJP retained the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation (GMC), winning 38 of 44 seats, three less than its 2021 tally. The Congress bagged five, three more than it had in 2021. It swept all four seats in Ward 6, the only ward the BJP lost entirely. An Independent took the remaining seat, while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which won one seat in 2021 and fielded candidates on 32 seats this time, drew a blank.The polls saw a turnout of 59.25 per cent. While AAP’s vote share fell from 21.77 per cent in 2021 to 4.38, the Congress’s rose from 28.02 to around 37 and the BJP’s from 46.49 to 56.64. The swing in vote share may not be negligible, but it is just one urban pocket—one with a remarkable modern political history, though. Gandhinagar has long been a place where the Congress could win and still not govern. In the first election in 2011, the Congress won 18 seats to the BJP’s 15. The mayor, Mahendrasinh Rana, crossed over to the BJP with other corporators, and the BJP took the board. In 2016 the two parties tied at 16 seats each. A Congress councillor, Pravin Patel, switched sides at the mayoral vote, and the BJP took power. Only in 2021 did the BJP win an absolute majority at the ballot box. This year’s result is the first in which a clear majority was never in doubt. The civic body largely overlaps the Gandhinagar North and Gandhinagar South assembly seats. South has voted BJP in every election since delimitation in 2008, while North went to the Congress in 2017 before the BJP’s Ritaben Patel won it back in 2022. Since 2019, GMC has been a part of Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s Lok Sabha constituency, which was represented by L.K. Advani earlier. The BJP also retained Thara municipality in Banaskantha, winning 19 of 24 seats to the Congress’s five. In Okha, in Devbhumi Dwarka, it won 29 of the 32 seats contested and the Congress three. With four seats already won unopposed, the BJP holds 33 of 36 seats. The BJP’s dominance in the capital is intact, but the swing is less one-sided than the headline. The opposition vote appears to have consolidated behind the Congress as AAP collapsed. Yet the Congress and AAP together took roughly 50 per cent in 2021, but only about 41 per cent now. The anti-BJP vote has concentrated and also shrunk.Gandhinagar polls are watched with great interest as its electorate largely comprises government employees with unparalleled proximity to the seat of power. With 2.6 lakh voters, Ahmedabad’s twin city is aspiring to emerge as a global sporting hub. The BJP enters the December 2027 assembly race as the clear favourite, with its urban base intact after sweeping all 15 municipal corporations in April this year. The Congress can claim a modest recovery in the capital. But AAP’s bid to become the third force has taken a heavy blow. The real test comes in rural Saurashtra and north Gujarat, where this civic poll offers no evidence either way.Subscribe to India Today Magazine- Ends