BJP gained in 14 Assembly segments from '99 to '02

AHMEDABAD: The ruling BJP bettered its last Lok Sabha performance in Gujarat during the Assembly elections held in December 2002.
The BJP got more votes than its nearest rival in 14 additional Assembly seats in 2002, when compared to the Assembly segment wise result of 1999 parliamentary elections.
The Congress is down by 18 Assembly seats during the same period.A comparison of the performance of the two major political parties while taking into the voting pattern in the 182 Assembly segments of the 26 Lok Sabha seats in the 1999 elections and the Assembly seats in 2002 state elections shows that the BJP gained in areas that saw maximum violence during the post-Godhra riots.
The BJP has gained considerably in Central Gujarat which was once thought to be a Congress bastion. Central Gujarat saw the maximum violence during the 2002 riots. The BJP, however, lost outside the region with the Congress notching up some gains in south and north of the state in 2002.
The Congress at present has five MPs from the state — Kheda, Kapadvanj, Surendranagar, Sabarkantha and Patan. However, after Godhra, the Congress fared poorly in these constituencies. In Kheda, the BJP registered a gain in four Assembly seats, compared to a meagre one Assembly segment in the 1999 elections.
Kapadvanj and Surendranagar saw the BJP winning three and two Assembly segments respectively. In Sabarkantha, it was status quo while in the SC-reserved constituency of Patan, the BJP gained one Assembly seat.
The BJP, that sent 21 MPs to New Delhi in 1999, lost in areas that were relatively less affected by the violence in 2002. The BJP lost in 16 Assembly seats but those were more than compensated by the gains in constituencies in Central Gujarat.
In Mahatma Gandhi’s birthplace, Porbandar, the BJP suffered the worst. It lost as much as three Assembly seats to the Congress compared to the 1999 polls when it had swept the constituency. BJP strongholds like Mandvi (ST) and Kutch saw Congress gaining by three Assembly seats.
The coastal districts of Valsad (ST) and Jamnagar also saw gains of two seats each for the Congress. In Banaskantha, the BJP lost out an Assembly segment to an Independent candidate. In Bharuch, the JD(U) managed to make a dent in the vote-share of both the major political parties, winning two Assembly segments. In Surat, the BJP went down by one seat.
Assembly segments in Saurashtra — Junagadh, Amreli, Bhavnagar, Rajkot — didn’t see any change of hands as the two parties held on to their 1999 segments in the 2002 Assembly seats. Gandhinagar and Sabarkantha followed suit.
The BJP improved by four seats each in Dhandhuka and Mehsana. Godhra and Vadodara which bore the brunt of the violence saw the BJP winning in all Assembly seats. In Ahmedabad the BJP gained by one seat at the cost of the Congress. The BJP won in three Assembly segments in Anand, Chhota Udepur (ST) and Dohad each.