AMN / GANDHINAGAR
As many as 371 candidates have been left in the fray for 26 Lok Sabha seats, while 45 candidates are in the final contention for bypolls to 4 assembly constituencies in Gujarat.
An Election Commission release said, 81 candidates withdrew their candidature for Lok Sabha polls yesterday. Earlier, 120 nominations were found invalid out of a total of 572 for 26 parliamentary seats. AIR correspondent reports Surendranagar seat has highest 36 candidates in the fray, while lowest 6 candidates are in the fray in Panchmahal seat. However, the focus will remain on Gandhinagar seat, where BJP president Amit Shah is contesting his first Lok Sabha election.
Total 17 candidates are in fray on Gandhinagar seat, but the main rival of Amit Shah is Congress candidate C.J.Chavda, who is a sitting MLA of Gandhinagar North constituency. The seat has formerly seen representation by Purshottam Ganesh Mavlankar, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani. Considered as BJP’s strongholds since last 30 years, BJP won this seat by a margin 4 lakh 88 thousand votes in 2014.