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In A resounding triumph, the Gujarat chief minister, Mr Shankarsinh
Waghela was today elected to the state vidhan sabha from the
Radhanpur constituency.
The Bharatiya Janata Party which had vowed to ensure a political
demise for Mr Waghela by defeating him in the poll came a cropper.
Mr Waghela defeated his nearest BJP candidate Mr Shankarbhai
Chaudhari by a margin of 13,984 votes. All other 40 conditions in
the fray lost their security deposit. Mr Waghela secured 57,569 of
1,11,162 votes polled and Mr Chaudhari got 43,585 votes. 1,851
votes were rejected.
The victory would enable Mr Waghela to fulfil the constitutional
requirement that leader of a vidhan sabha should be a member of the
house. But more significantly, the win was a sweet revenge for Mr
Waghela against his bete noire, the BJP which expelled the man from
party who was the architect of the party's rise to power in Gujarat
after relentless efforts to marginalise and sideline him in the
state politics.
Mr Waghela had reasons to be ecstatic over the win for he had no
organisational support. The fledgling Rashtriya Janata Party
founded by last August after his expulsion from the BJP was not
even a year old.
Still he overcame challenge from the entire Sangh Parivar with his
consummate skills as a shrewd strategist which kept his detractors
guessing all the time about his tactics and by able marshalling all
resources he needed to fight the poll.
The chief minister's electoral success is likely to trigger of
changes in both political and administrative fronts. And in some
ways it could be a turning point for the state politics.
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