NCP damaged Cong prospects

AHMEDABAD: After Hindutva, it was Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) which turned tables on the Congress by cutting into its votes and contributed to its defeat on, at least, 12 seats. But for the NCP candidates and the crucial few thousand votes they got on each of these seats, the Congress tally would have been more respectable.
Both the Congress and the NCP agree that they share the same voters’ base and when the poll alliance talks failed, NCP fielded its candidates all over the state.Of its 80 candidates, 12 polled more votes than the margin of the winning BJP candidate over the runner-up Congress candidate. No wonder, the AICC general secretary had described the NCP as the BJP’s B-team. On four such seats, the NCP fielded its candidates from the same community as that of the Congress candidate.
In Central and South Gujarat, results of Matar, Olpad and Limdi constituencies would have been different had the NCP not fielded its candidates. In Matar, while BJP candidate Rakesh Brahmbhatt bagged 51,433 votes, Dhiru Chavda of the Congress polled 41,415 votes. NCP candidate Devsinh Chauhan polled 10,856 votes.
In Saurashtra, the Congress suffered the greatest loss due to the presence of NCP candidates. In Jodia, Congress polled 41,414 votes against BJP’s 43,835, while NCP polled 2,333 votes. Similarly, in Kalawad, BJP had 41,490 votes against Congress’ 39,851 votes, while NCP polled 4,748 votes.
According to Congress leader Madhusudan Mistry, “If the NCP had Gujarat’s interest in mind and if it wanted to keep Hindutva at bay, it should not have fielded any candidates. It failed to win even a single seat and was unsuccessful in making inroads anywhere in the state.�
However, NCP state president Sanat Mehta dismisses this allegation as “silly�. He considers NCP’s performance as satisfactory, as the party is just a few months old in Gujarat. He added that of the 80 candidates fielded by the party, three polled over 20,000 votes, one over 15,000 votes, four garnered over 10,000 votes and nine bagged over 5,000 votes.