In a first in the history of the state of Gujarat, a Lok Sabha Member of Parliament has been declared elected unopposed. On the last day of withdrawal of nominations on April 22, Mukesh Dalal of the Bharatiya Janata Party was elected unopposed from Surat.

Gujarat will now vote on 25 seats on May 7. The BJP is contesting on all the seats. The Congress is contesting on 23 seats and has left Bhavnagar and Bharuch for the Arvind Kejriwal led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) under the I.N.D.I.A. bloc.

When Gujarat and Maharashtra were undivided states, Major General H. S. Himmatisinh was elected unopposed from Saurashtra in 1951 LS elections. Gujarat and Maharashtra got separate statehoods on May 1, 1960.

What, and how did it happen in Surat? Congress candidate Nilesh Kumbhani and his ‘dummy’ candidate Suresh Padsala’s candidatures were dismissed under Section 36(2) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. The Act permits the Returning Officer to examine the nominations based on valid objections.

On April 20, Dalal’s election agent Dinesh Jodhani had raised an objection before the RO Dr. Sourabh Pardhi that signatures of the proposers of Kumbhani and Padsala were fake.

The RO gave time on April 21 for a hearing. However, three proposers of Kumbhani, and one of Padsala failed to turn up. Interestingly, the RO got separate affidavits of all the proposers stating that the signatures on the nomination papers were not theirs. Sources said that the different signatures were verified with the sales deed, driving licence and PAN card.

Dr. Pardhi, the District Election Officer, then rejected the nominations of the Congress candidate and his dummy candidate.

On the last day of withdrawing nominations – April 22 – eight candidates, including Bharti of the BSP, withdrew from the fray. The DEO then declared Dalal elected unopposed.

While Congress leader Jairam Ramesh described it as “democracy under threat”, Gujarat Congress president Shaktisinh Gohil termed it as “murder of democracy”.

Ramesh alleged that the BJP is trying “to match-fix Surat” as it fears the ire of MSMEs and the traders. The BJP has been winning the Surat seat since 1984.

On April 21, Gohil alleged that the Congress candidate was being pressured. The BJP outrightly refuted the allegations.

On April 21, Kumbhani told the media that he was not able to contact his proposers and alleged that it was the BJP’s handiwork.

Two of Kumbhani’s proposers are his relatives and one business partner. Jagdish Savalia is Kumbhani’s brother-in-law, Dhruvin Dhamelia is his nephew and Ramesh Polta his business partner.

Interestingly, none of the three accompanied him when he filed his nomination papers. Furthermore, the affidavits that were given to the RO had the stamp of one notary, who is reported to be close to the BJP.

Kumbhani is not even a decade old in the Congress. He was a close associate of Hardik Patel, who led the Patidar Reservation Stir in 2015.

Congress sources said that Patel recommended Kumbhani for a ticket for corporator’s post. He won the 2015 election as a corporator. He lost the election in 2021.

The Congress does not have a single corporator in the Surat Municipal Corporation. In 2022, he lost his deposit as a Congress candidate from Kamrej Assembly seat.

Dinesh Anajwala, a senior journalist and an expert on South Gujarat said, “what has happened reflects bankruptcy in the Congress”. He alleged a “setting” in what has happened.

Congress sources said that Kumbhani was told by the party leadership to keep some senior leaders as his proposers.

According to former Surat corporator and Congress leader Aslam Cyclewala, perhaps the party thought it is the candidate’s prerogative to decide whom to keep as a proposer.

Cyclewala claimed he had sensed that perhaps Kumbhani’s form could be rejected, and he had sounded the party leadership in Surat to be careful.

Anajwala pointed out that there were only a handful of Congressmen who had shown interest to contest the elections. “There is no leadership in the Congress in Gujarat that can enthuse party workers,” he said. The Congress has been out of power for nearly three decades in Gujarat and as a result the grassroot workers are demoralised.

In a city that is the diamond capital of India and a textile hub, the Congress does not even have an office of its own. The office runs from Congress leader Naishadh Desai’s home.

Desai is the Congress candidate from Navsari and is taking on the BJP’s candidate and state party president C. R. Paatil. Paatil had won the 2019 election with a margin of 6.89 lakh votes, the highest in the country.

The last decade has seen many MLAs and leaders quitting the Congress and joining the BJP. The latest in the list are former Gujarat Congress president Arjun Modhwadia and former Rajya Sabha MP Narayan Rathwa. Modhwadia is contesting bye-election from the Porbandar seat from which he resigned as Congress MLA.

For the last several years, especially if we look at the last two Lok Sabha elections, Gujarat has been a safe state for the BJP. In Surat, Darshna Jardosh of the BJP had won with a margin of over 5.40 lakh votes.

The Surat seat is also important considering that people of the likes of Kanayalal Desai, C. D. Patel and Kashiram Rana were elected in the past. In fact, Rana was the MP from 1989 to 2004.

Given the arithmetic, there appears to be no cause of concern for the BJP. However, the incidents like invalidation of the Congress candidate’s candidature, Congress leaders deserting the party exposes the grand old party, its vulnerability, and its inability to get its act together in a state which is the BJP’s model state.

Paatil, who has set a target to win each of the 26 Lok Sabha seats from Gujarat with a margin of 5 lakh votes, dedicated the Surat win to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said it is a first step of “400 paar” (going beyond 400).

The grapevine is that the BJP ensured that the rest of the candidates withdrew from the fray. While there is no way this can be proved, the BJP has had the last laugh on the Surat seat.

Meanwhile, the Congress has approached the ECI seeking intervention. It has stated that the order has been “passed in circumstances in which the whereabouts of the proposers are not known and it is feared that they have been abducted”.

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