Ahmedabad:

The electoral battle in Gandhinagar will be one of the most watched in the coming elections among the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat, with Union Minister Amit Shah vying for the seat Nagar seat.

The Gujarat Lok Sabha polls will be held in a phased manner on May 7. Counting will take place on June 4.

Here are the noteworthy Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat: 1. Gandhinagar: This city seat has long been a bastion of the BJP, having fielded the likes of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani in the Assembly staunch supporter. The party is now represented by Amit Shah, who defeated Congress MP CJ Chavda by 5.57 lakh votes in the 2019 polls.

2. Porbandar: The BJP is the dominant party here due to the large presence of Leuva Patidars, a sub-caste of the numerically and electorally strong Patel community.

The party fielded Union Minister Mansukh Mandaviya from Leuva Patidar for this seat. The minister, who hails from Bhav Nagar district, has so far reached Parliament through the Union House route.

The BJP has won the Porbandar seat since 1991, with the exception of 2009, when Vitthal Radadia of the Congress won.

3. Rajkot: This is a stronghold of the BJP and the party has been victorious since 1989, except in 2009 when Kunwaj Bavaria of the Congress won the seat.

There are a large number of Leuva Patidars in this constituency. Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Parshottam Rupala, a Union minister and a close aide of Modi, is Kadva Patidar, another sub-caste of the Patel community . Rupala hails from Amreli district of Saurashtra region.

4. Surat: The diamond polishing center of the world has embraced the BJP since 1989. The current MP from Surat is Union Minister of State for Railways and Textiles Darshana Jardosh, who won the seat in the 2019 polls with a margin of 5.40 lakh votes.

The seat also holds a place in the country’s political history, with the first non-Congress prime minister, Morarji Desai, winning here five times, including in the 1977 post-Emergency polls.

5. Baruch: In this tribal-dominated seat, the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party will join forces to take on the BJP. As part of the Indian Alliance, the Congress lost the seat to the AAP, which fielded Dediapada MLA Chaitar Vasava. He will contest against the BJP’s Mansukh Vasava, who has won the seat since 1999.

Vasava won by a margin of 3.30 lakh votes in 2019, ensuring that the BJP’s control of the seat since 1989 continues.

The Bharuch seat was held by late Congress leader Ahmed Patel, who first won the seat in 1977 and went on to win in 1980 and 1984, and went on to represent Bharuch in 1989 in parliament.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)