Gujarat Assembly Elections 2022: OBC leader Alpesh Thakor today (November 17) filed his nomination as a BJP candidate from Gandhinagar South Assembly constituency in Gujarat. Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel accompanied him as he filed his papers on the last day of filing of nomination forms for the second phase of the Assembly elections.
Thakor, who had lost from Radhanpur in North Gujarat in a by-election in 2019 on the BJP ticket, has been fielded from Gandhinagar South this time.
“I am confident that with the support of our workers, the BJP will win massively in the state,” he told reporters afterwards. The BJP will take the state forward in the coming days, Thakor added.
Chief minister Patel said the state has achieved a lot under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership.
“That is the reason everyone can say `I have made this Gujarat'," he said. Thakor rose to prominence as a leader of Other Backward Classes (OBC) when he opposed the demand that the Patidar community be given reservation in the OBC quota.
He joined the Congress before the 2017 elections and won from Radhanpur. In 2019 he left the Congress and joined the BJP, but lost in the by-election.
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Reiterating Prime Minister Narendra Modi's slogan "Aa Gujarat me banavyu chhe" he said, "if you understand this, you will never vote for any other party." Thakor exuded confidence in the party winning over 150 seats in the elections.
"Twenty seven years before now, there was various "Bhai log" across the state. People did not use to get proper drinking water, education facilities were poor, in fracture was poor. But when the BJP came to power, the "Gunda raj" ended, people, get clean drinking water, and the infrastructure improved. Gujarat became free from the "curfew raj"," he said. The BJP leader, who was earlier in Congress before 2019, also took on his previous party stating that it has lost ground in the state and none of its leaders has a mass base.
Thakor, one of the faces of the anti-BJP movement in Gujarat during the 2017 elections, joined the BJP in 2019. He had won on a Congress ticket in the 2017 Assembly elections but lost his Radhanpur seat in a bypoll in 2019.
The Assembly polls are scheduled to be held on December 1 and 5, while the counting of votes will take place on December 8.
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