Palanpur, Nov 23 (PTI) BJP leader Swarupji Thakor on Saturday defeated his nearest Congress rival, Gulabsinh Rajput, by 2,442 votes in the bypoll to the Vav assembly constituency in Gujarat, as per the ECI.
Thakor surged past Rajput in the last two rounds. He bagged 92,176 votes, restricting Rajput to 89,734.
Independent candidate Mavji Patel finished third with 27,195 votes. A total of 10 candidates were in the fray.
The bypoll to the Vav assembly segment was necessitated following the resignation of Congress MLA Geniben Thakor after her victory from the Banaskantha Lok Sabha constituency.
With the Vav victory, the BJP's tally in the 182-member Gujarat assembly went up to 162.
While Rajput maintained his lead by 370 votes over Thakor in 21 rounds, the latter took pole position by a margin of 1,099 votes in the 22nd round and then consolidated it further to win. There were 24 rounds of vote counting.
The voter turnout in the bypoll held on November 13 was 70.55 per cent.
Thakor said his win was due to the BJP's central and state leadership as well as the work put in by party workers.
He had lost to Geniben Thakor in the 2022 assembly polls, which the BJP had swept.
The seat is a Congress stronghold that had been won by Geniben Thakor in 2017 as well, and the presence of Mavji Patel, from the dominant Chaudhary community, was a cause of concern for the ruling party.
Patel was suspended from the BJP for going against the party directives and contesting as an independent.
Geniben Thakor won the Banaskantha Lok Sabha seat in June by defeating BJP's Rekhaben Chaudhary by more than 30,000 votes. Her win was the sole won for the Congress from the state in the 2024 general elections. The BJP won the remaining 25.