The Congress lost its bastion of Vav Assembly seat in the bypoll, with the result going right down to the wire. The party’s Gulabsinh Rajput lost to the BJP’s Swarupji Thakor by just over 2,400 votes, the lowest-ever margin for the seat. Before he pulled ahead, Thakor was trailing Rajput for most of the counting process.

Vav was Gujarat’s lone bypoll battle, necessitated by sitting Congress MLA Geniben Thakor’s election to the Lok Sabha earlier this year from Banaskantha (Vav is an Assembly segment within the seat). Geniben is the Congress’s lone Lok Sabha MP from the state. Thakor had lost to Geniben in the 2022 Assembly elections by 15,601 votes from Vav.

Gujarat BJP chief CR Paatil thanked voters for handing a “grand victory” both in Vav and in the Maharashtra Assembly elections. “Even in the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress MLA (Geniben) had got lower votes in the Vav Assembly segment,” he said.

With the loss of Vav seat, the Congress, which won only 17 seats out of 182 in the 2022 Assembly elections, is down to 11. The BJP’s number has gone up to 162 from 156, with five Congress MLAs switching sides of which four later won in the bypolls.

This also means that the Congress is down to one of the seven Assembly seats in north Gujarat’s Banaskantha district – once considered its citadel.

Congress candidate Rajput, who had lost Tharad in 2022 by around 26,506 votes, was also hurt by the entry of BJP rebel and former MLA Mavji Patel, who belongs to the influential Chaudhary-Patel community, in the race as an Independent. The BJP’s Thakor was starting with an advantage in the Thakor-OBC dominated Vav. Mavji Patel secured 27,195 votes.

Patil Saturday claimed Mavji contesting was a Congress “tactic”. “The Congress put up a former BJP person to make it a three-way contest, but even he licked the dust,” he said.

The BJP campaigned hard in Vav, with Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, and senior BJP leaders such as Paatil and ministers chipping in.