The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has declared five candidates for the Central Gujarat seats of Anand, Godhra, and Waghodia, as well as Vadodara City and Manjalpur, which are reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates.
The Congress has fielded Girish Shandaliya in Anand, where Kanti Sodha Parmar of the Congress defeated the BJP’s four-term winning streak in 2017.
In Godhra, where CK Raulji is a four-term MLA who joined the BJP ahead of the 2017 elections, the party has fielded Rajesh Patel. Gautam Rajput will run for the Waghodia constituency in Vadodara district, a BJP stronghold with Madhu Shrivastava as MLA.
The party has fielded a local advocate, Jigar Solanki, in the urban seats of Vadodara city (SC), where Cabinet Minister of State Manisha Vakil is a two-term MLA. Both the BJP and the Congress have yet to announce their candidates for this seat.
Given the large Maharashtrian population of Manjalpur, where Yogesh Patel is MLA, the party has fielded Vinay Chavan. Apart from Akota Assembly constituency, this is the AAP’s second Maharashtrian candidate in Vadodara.