Gujarat Election Result: AAP CM candidate's '40 lakh' claim as party ends up distant third

AAP leader Isudan Gadhvi focused on the silver lining in Gujarat, claiming that the party secured a respectable vote share in its first election contesting on all 182 seats.

Gadhvi, who was Aam Aadmi Party's CM face in Gujarat, was himself trailing in the Khambalia constituency by over 18,000 votes.

He was leading at the end of the fourth round over Congress's incumbent MLA Vikram Madam, while the BJP's Mulubhai Bera was trailing in the third place.

Also watch: Gujarat Elections | Who is Isudan Gadhvi, AAP's CM candidate for state polls?

But Bera surpassed his rivals in the later rounds of vote counting.

Khambhalia emerged as one of the high-profile seats in the Gujarat Assembly elections after the AAP fielded Gadhvi, its CM face, from this constituency in the Saurashtra region.

A former TV news anchor, Gadhvi was born and brought up in Khambhalia. But social equations in this Ahir-dominated seat probably did not favour him as his own Gadhvi community is numerically not significant in the area.

On the other hand, both Madam of the Congress and the BJP's Bera come from the Ahir community. Madam had also enjoyed the support of the Muslim community which constitutes the second largest voting bloc, but this time around it seemed to have favoured the AAP.

In the last several decades, no non-Ahir candidate has won from the seat.

The BJP had won the seat in 2007 and 2012 but lost to the Congress in a bypoll in 2014. The Congress retained it in 2017.

(With input from PTI)