Cong bags 12 seats in Gujarat

Erasing bitter memories of ignominious defeat in 2002 Assembly polls, a resurgent Congress inflicted severe blows to BJP in its own bastion, bagging 12 LS seats.

Erasing bitter memories of the ignominious defeat in 2002 Assembly elections, a resurgent Gujarat Congress inflicted severe blows to BJP in its own bastion, bagging 12 Lok Sabha seats, thus improving its meagre tally of five seats in 1999 general elections by seven.

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Though the Congress failed to retain two of its seats Surendranagar and Patan, it forced several BJP MPs, including Union Minister Bhavnaben Chikhaliya, to bite the dust.

Interestingly, four of the five sitting MLAs fielded by the Congress stood true to the expectations of the high command when they trounced sitting BJP MPs.

Bharat Solanki, who is Deputy Leader of Opposition and son of former Union External Affairs Minister Madhavsinh Solanki, will make his maiden entry into the lower House after he humbled BJP's Jayprakash Patel in Anand seat of Central Gujarat by 61,000 votes.

Similary, Mandvi MLA Tushar Chaudhary--son of Leader of Opposition in state assembly Amarsinh Chaudhary, romped home victorious from the tribal-dominated Mandvi (ST) constituency in south Gujarat defeating BJP's Mansinh Patel by a whooping 1.73 lakh votes.

Union Minister of State for Tourism Bhavnaben Chikhaliya's hopes of a fifth consecutive victory from Junagad were shattered after she was trounced by Congress's Jashu Barad, who won by nearly 40,000 votes.