Ahmedabad: Sixteen urban Assembly seats in Ahmedabad city, which go to polls in the second phase of the Gujarat polls on Monday, are crucial for the Bharatiya Janata Party which has always enjoyed an upper hand here in the elections since 1990.
While the Congress improved its tally to four seats in the 2017 election from two in 2012, the fight has become more interesting this time with the entry of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has fielded its candidates in all the 16 seats, and the All India
Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) which is contesting four seats.
Political analysts claim the BJP, which currently holds 12 out of these 16 seats, will win most of them and the AAP may fail to make any impact. The AIMIM is likely eat into the Congress's votes in some of the seats, they say.
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding two back-to-back roadshows in the city ahead of the second phase of polling which will cover north and central Gujarat, the 16 Assembly seats in Ahmedabad city, considered a stronghold of the BJP, are once again in the spotlight.
On December 1, Modi led a 30-km-long roadshow through the city. His procession passed through 13 Assembly constituencies of Ahmedabad.
On December 2, he led a 10-km roadshow from the Ahmedabad airport to Saraspur area as part of his whirlwind campaign.
Like other cities of Gujarat, voters of this bustling urban centre have been standing firmly behind the saffron party since the early 90s.