Ghatlodia(Gujarat): Gujarat Chief Minister and BJP leader Bhupendra Patel is heading towards an obvious win, with a whopping 80.86% votes already in his favour in the Ghatlodia constituency. Leading on second as of 11 am is the Congress candidate Dr Amee Yajnik with 6,071 votes, amounting to about 10% of the total votes -- nowhere close to being a competition to CM Patel. Vijay Patel, the AAP candidate has 4,167 votes in his cart, standing third amid the poor competition.
The statistics so far indicate a majority win for the Chief Minister, paving way for his second term as the CM as was indicated by Union Home Minister and BJP's top brass Amit Shah about a month ago. With BJP being in power in the state for the last seven years, Patel is most likely to serve as the CM again if the party reigns Gujarat for its seventh term.
During the 2017 elections too, the incumbent Chief Minister had contested from the Ghatlodia Constituency. The trends this year showed an impressive improvement in the number of votes secured by Patel. In a rather surprising move, Patel had replaced Vijay Rupani to serve his first term as the Chief Minsiter. Patel is the first-time MLA from his constituency.
Amit Shah meanwhile had clarified during an interview with a news channel that Bhupendra Patel will retain the CM seat if BJP comes to power again in Gujarat.
BJP has been in power in Gujarat for 27 years with Prime Minister Narendra Modi remaining in the Chief Minister's post for the longest time before becoming the Prime Minister. Congress gave a tough fight to the ruling BJP in the last assembly elections in 2017.
