Ahmedabad: Samajwadi Party secured its sole seat in the 2022 Gujarat assembly polls on Thursday, as party candidate Kandhalbhai Sarmanbhai Jadeja defeated BJP's Dheliben Maldebhai Odedara by a margin of 26,712 votes. The move allowed the Uttar Pradesh-based Samajwadi Party to break into the political scenario in Gujarat. Jadeja, the son of late Santokben Sarmanbhai Jadeja, former legislator and don whose life inspired the making of Bollywood flick 'Godmother' starring Shabana Azmi, has previously won the seat for the NCP. His mother held the seat between 1990 and 1995.
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In both the 2012 and 2017 assembly elections, Jadeja fought on the NCP ticket as the party had a poll alliance with Congress. In 2020, Rajya Sabha elections, however, Jadeja threw his weight behind the BJP candidate, much to the displeasure of the party. He switched over his loyalties to SP this time around as the party denied him a ticket.
For Jadeja, however, the party he contests does not matter. "People will vote for me due to my work. I resigned from the party last week, and everybody followed and resigned. NCP is finished in Gujarat. I have now hopped on a bicycle," he said while speaking to the news agency ANI. "Samajwadi Party and BJP are rivals and the situation in Gujarat is different. If people elect me from here, I will have to work, I can't go to Uttar Pradesh," he also said.
