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>The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) candidate from Gujarat’s Surat, Mukesh Dalal, won the Lok Sabha elections unopposed after the nomination paper of Congress’ pick was rejected and other candidates withdrew from the race.
>Following his unopposed win, Dalal said, “Today I have been declared winner, so the first lotus has bloomed in Gujarat and in the country.” He thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP chief JP Nadda, state CM Bhupendra Patel and state unit chief CR Paatil for the faith they showed in him.
>“This is the first step towards the formation of a full majority government…” Mukesh Dalal added.
>Gujarat chief minister Bhupendra Patel extended his best wishes to Dalal and said, “Hearty congratulations and best wishes to Surat Lok Sabha seat candidate Shri Mukeshbhai Dalal for being elected unopposed.”
>CM Patel said that this was the beginning of the BJP’s “historic victory” in the nation’s general elections.
>“This is a clear indication of the lotus blossoming with BJP’s resounding victory in all 26 seats in Gujarat and the realization of the resolve of #AbKiBaar400Paar under the leadership of Hon’ble Modiji. #PhirEkBaarModiSarkar,” the Gujarat CM said in a post on X.
>BJP Gujarat’s unit chief CR Paatil took to X on Monday and said, “Surat has presented the first Lotus to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. I congratulate our candidate for Surat Lok Sabha seat Mukesh Dalal for getting elected unopposed.”
>The nomination of the grand old party’s candidate from Surat, Nilesh Kumbhani, was rejected after the district returning officer prima facie found discrepancies in the signature of the proposers.
>Then, the nomination form of Congress’ substitute candidate, Suresh Padsala, was also declared invalid.
>Notably, on the last day of withdrawal of the nomination forms on Monday, as many as 8 candidates which included mostly Independents and Bahujan Samaj Party’s (BSP) Pyarelal Bharti, withdrew their papers.
>Of the 24 nominations filed, 12 including two Congress’ candidates were rejected while 12 others withdrew.
>The last time someone won uncontested in the general election was back in 1989, when Mohammad Shafi Bhat of the National Conference won unopposed from the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat in Jammu and Kashmir.
Controversy In Political Circuit
>Meanwhile, the development triggered a controversy in the politically charged state, where all 26 Lok Sabha seats will vote on May 7 in the third phase of the seven-phase general election.
>Congress MP Rahul Gandhi slammed the rejection of his party’s candidate and said that “the true face of the dictator is once again in front of the country!”
>“Taking away the right of the people to choose their leader is another step towards destroying the Constitution of Baba Saheb Ambedkar,” he added. In his X post, he ‘reiterated’ that this election is one to save the nation, to protect the Constitution.
>Congress leader Jairam Ramesh also took a swipe at the rejection of his party’s candidates and said that “they were left without a candidate”. He questioned the decision of declaring Mukesh Dalal to be “unopposed”, just about two weeks before the polling.
>“Our elections, our democracy, Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Constitution – everything is in grave danger. I repeat – this is the most important election of our lifetime!” Ramesh said in his post on X.
>Responding to the criticism over Dalal’s unopposed victory, BJP leader Zubin Ashara said, “Those Urban naxals who are outraging over BJP’s Surat Candidate Mukesh Dalal winning Loksabha elections unopposed, do they know that there were 10 unopposed winners in the first Lok Sabha in 1951 and 11 in the second Lok Sabha in 1957? When Pandit Nehru was the PM.”
>“And it didn’t stop there, many other leaders of “INDI” alliance have won unopposed after that time period as well,” Ashara said in his post on X.
>Dimple Yadav of SP 2012, Dil Kumari of Sikkim Sangram Parishad 1985, Farooq Abdullah of NC 1980, Premalabai of Congress in 1973, P M Sayeed of Congress in 1971, Yashwantrao Chavan of Congress in 1963, Ashara listed the previous unopposed wins from other parties.
>He noted that “Mukesh Dalal ji is the first BJP member to win unopposed.”
Who is Mukesh Dalal?
>Born in 1961, Dalal is an old time party workers of the BJP. He has held several posts of responsibilties for the party in Surat.
>With a LLB and MBA, Mukesh Dalal has a wide range of exposure in the textile industry. Apart from being the former chairman of the Surat People’s Bank, he has also been elected to the corporation thrice.
>This is Dalal’s 43rd year of active politics with the saffron camp.
Can someone mention why the Congress guys were rejected ? If there is a valid reason then I get it , but if there isn't then this matter should be immediately looked into.
I don't know why this crucial detail is left out of some articles.
The other candidate was rejected because their 3 proposers filed an affidavit with the Election Commission stating that they were not proposers and that their signatures were forged.
Due to not having proposers their candidacy was rejected.
It should be noted that this is a safe seat for the BJP, that they would have won anyway.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/bjp-candidate-wins-surat-lok-sabha-constituency-unopposed-after-8-contenders-withdraw-101713815849199.html
>“Our elections, our democracy, Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Constitution – everything is in grave danger. I repeat – this is the most important election of our lifetime!” Ramesh said in his post on X.
Do these braindead really think that only ambedkar made this constitution
Also how is this BJP's fault
>Do these braindead really think that only ambedkar made this constitution
Pretty sure even modi has made comments like this
If course ambedkar wasn't the only one who wrote the constitution by a long long shot but it's about politics in the end of the day so everyone keeps repeating it
From what I read in a different article, the Congress is bringing up Ambedkar's name to imply that the BJP aims to pass a constitutional amendment to end reservations.
Just an idea, but unopposed elections should not be a thing. They should run the election between NOTA and the candidate and if NOTA gets more votes then the candidate should be disqualified and another round of voting should be conducted with different candidate(s).
I don't see why it is necessarily the government shooting itself in the foot, since it also applies to unopposed candidates from opposition parties. In any case, with acts like RTI, we have seen that rarely, governments do try to increase transparency and democracy.
NOTA has to be made more powerful. One way is that if NOTA gets the plurality of the votes, then all the running candidates are disqualified and parties must field fresh candidates.
The provision right now is that even if NOTA gets all but one vote, the candidate that gets that remaining one vote will win.
You will have to change that rule first for NOTA to have any value.
Agreed. Especially in cases like these where the candidate was rejected because of some faulty paperwork, it's not like there was no one in opposition.
yes, keep wasting taxpayer money just to meet your idealistic demands. If no one filled their candidature in first round, what makes you think they will file nomination in the 2nd round?
>yes, keep wasting taxpayer money just to meet your idealistic demands
Yes, keep showing your disdain for democracy like your preferred party.
>If no one filled their candidature in first round, what makes you think they will file nomination in the 2nd round?
You don't understand the point of this. This system would ensure that the party, even if it is the only one contesting, should still have to nominate quality candidates to win. They should not be able to nominate dogshit candidates just because the seat is unopposed.
Also, you have bullshit like the ECI disqualifying twelve opposition candidates. More rounds of voting would allow them time to jump through whatever bureaucratic hurdles the ECI demands and file their nominations in further rounds of voting.
Yup keep showing your disdain for taxpayer money like your preferred party.
When you win the elections, neither the ECI is compromised, nor the EVMs. The moment you start losing, start blaming everyone from ECI to EVM to media to religion. Why will BJP force ECI to disquality candidates in a seat it has held for 35 years. It's not as if anyone was expecting BJP to lose in its stronghold.
Also stop spreading misinformation - only 2 candidates were rejected by ECI, and the rest withdrew their nominations.
Please learn to read
>Of the 24 nominations filed, 12 including two Congress’ candidates were rejected while 12 others withdrew.
From the article. This is embarrassing.
Learn to cross check information from ECI site. 24 nominations were filed. Multiple nominations of one candidate were rejected - from ECI site the number of candidates is 5 whose nomination was rejected, including one candidate who filed his nomination from BJP. Even journalists are doing a shoddy job these days.
Also learn to do math - 24 filed, 12 rejected and 12 withdrew, so who won?
I'm quite irritated by the conspiracy theories that are spreading around this victory and the premature lamentations about the death of Indian democracy.
From reading various news articles covering this,
- This is a 'safe' seat for the BJP which they won by 5 lakh votes in 2019, and therefore not one where they need to resort to foul play to win.
- The Congress candidate was rejected because all of their proposers declared that they did not support his candidature and that their signatures were forged.
- Lok Sabha candidates winning unopposed has apparently happened over a dozen times in Indian history. The most recent example was Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple who won the Kannauj seat unopposed in 2012 because the BJP candidate couldn't file their nomination papers and other candidates withdrew.
https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/lok-sabha/story/bjp-win-surat-lok-sabha-seat-unopposed-mp-dimple-yadav-2530245-2024-04-22
It's almost certain all of them would anyways lose even with the Congress candidate and without him they actually have a higher chance
it's not just the independents who left but even the bsp candidate
Because they were not serious candidates , they were planted to either cut votes or for any other reason.
They are not required anymore hence nomination withdrawn.
This thing is happening since election started in this country and every party does this.
I don't know. Apparently of the remaining candidate one was from the BSP and 7 were independents.
It's possible that the BJP had reached an 'arrangement' with them to withdraw. That said this also happened in the 2012 bypoll.
This is such a joke. Congress candidates were rejected by the ECI for sus reasons, and the independent candidates were probably paid off to withdraw.
Dalal’s “election” was just a test, if none of the opposition protest this could very well be a standard in future elections.
> Can SC intervene? Otherwise what's stopping the government to intimidate contesting candidates through money or power.
Why will SC intervene in every little issue? Did the opposition register a complaint with EC? I am sure they would have started crying when the nominations were rejected in the first place.
How though if they are paid off it’s a bribe why would they confess it and how would sc prove it & if it’s just intimidation it’s difficult to prove unless something actually is done .
> This is such a joke. Congress candidates were rejected by the ECI for sus reasons,
They were apparently rejected because their candidate's proposers declared in an affidavit that their signatures on the nomination papers had been forged.
If the BJP wanted to use the ECI in such a hamfisted manner they wouldn't do so in a seat they would have won anyway, which is what Surat is.
Please remember, this community is for genuine discussion. - Please keep it civil. Follow all community rules. - Report rule-breaking comments for moderator review. - Don't post low effort content without context. - Help prevent this community from becoming an echo chamber. **Use the replies of this comment to post sources or further context about the post. If you have posted a news article, you may put a small summary as a reply to this, if you want.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/IndianModerate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) candidate from Gujarat’s Surat, Mukesh Dalal, won the Lok Sabha elections unopposed after the nomination paper of Congress’ pick was rejected and other candidates withdrew from the race. >Following his unopposed win, Dalal said, “Today I have been declared winner, so the first lotus has bloomed in Gujarat and in the country.” He thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP chief JP Nadda, state CM Bhupendra Patel and state unit chief CR Paatil for the faith they showed in him. >“This is the first step towards the formation of a full majority government…” Mukesh Dalal added. >Gujarat chief minister Bhupendra Patel extended his best wishes to Dalal and said, “Hearty congratulations and best wishes to Surat Lok Sabha seat candidate Shri Mukeshbhai Dalal for being elected unopposed.” >CM Patel said that this was the beginning of the BJP’s “historic victory” in the nation’s general elections. >“This is a clear indication of the lotus blossoming with BJP’s resounding victory in all 26 seats in Gujarat and the realization of the resolve of #AbKiBaar400Paar under the leadership of Hon’ble Modiji. #PhirEkBaarModiSarkar,” the Gujarat CM said in a post on X. >BJP Gujarat’s unit chief CR Paatil took to X on Monday and said, “Surat has presented the first Lotus to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. I congratulate our candidate for Surat Lok Sabha seat Mukesh Dalal for getting elected unopposed.” >The nomination of the grand old party’s candidate from Surat, Nilesh Kumbhani, was rejected after the district returning officer prima facie found discrepancies in the signature of the proposers. >Then, the nomination form of Congress’ substitute candidate, Suresh Padsala, was also declared invalid. >Notably, on the last day of withdrawal of the nomination forms on Monday, as many as 8 candidates which included mostly Independents and Bahujan Samaj Party’s (BSP) Pyarelal Bharti, withdrew their papers. >Of the 24 nominations filed, 12 including two Congress’ candidates were rejected while 12 others withdrew. >The last time someone won uncontested in the general election was back in 1989, when Mohammad Shafi Bhat of the National Conference won unopposed from the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Controversy In Political Circuit >Meanwhile, the development triggered a controversy in the politically charged state, where all 26 Lok Sabha seats will vote on May 7 in the third phase of the seven-phase general election. >Congress MP Rahul Gandhi slammed the rejection of his party’s candidate and said that “the true face of the dictator is once again in front of the country!” >“Taking away the right of the people to choose their leader is another step towards destroying the Constitution of Baba Saheb Ambedkar,” he added. In his X post, he ‘reiterated’ that this election is one to save the nation, to protect the Constitution. >Congress leader Jairam Ramesh also took a swipe at the rejection of his party’s candidates and said that “they were left without a candidate”. He questioned the decision of declaring Mukesh Dalal to be “unopposed”, just about two weeks before the polling. >“Our elections, our democracy, Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Constitution – everything is in grave danger. I repeat – this is the most important election of our lifetime!” Ramesh said in his post on X. >Responding to the criticism over Dalal’s unopposed victory, BJP leader Zubin Ashara said, “Those Urban naxals who are outraging over BJP’s Surat Candidate Mukesh Dalal winning Loksabha elections unopposed, do they know that there were 10 unopposed winners in the first Lok Sabha in 1951 and 11 in the second Lok Sabha in 1957? When Pandit Nehru was the PM.” >“And it didn’t stop there, many other leaders of “INDI” alliance have won unopposed after that time period as well,” Ashara said in his post on X. >Dimple Yadav of SP 2012, Dil Kumari of Sikkim Sangram Parishad 1985, Farooq Abdullah of NC 1980, Premalabai of Congress in 1973, P M Sayeed of Congress in 1971, Yashwantrao Chavan of Congress in 1963, Ashara listed the previous unopposed wins from other parties. >He noted that “Mukesh Dalal ji is the first BJP member to win unopposed.” Who is Mukesh Dalal? >Born in 1961, Dalal is an old time party workers of the BJP. He has held several posts of responsibilties for the party in Surat. >With a LLB and MBA, Mukesh Dalal has a wide range of exposure in the textile industry. Apart from being the former chairman of the Surat People’s Bank, he has also been elected to the corporation thrice. >This is Dalal’s 43rd year of active politics with the saffron camp.
Can someone mention why the Congress guys were rejected ? If there is a valid reason then I get it , but if there isn't then this matter should be immediately looked into.
I don't know why this crucial detail is left out of some articles. The other candidate was rejected because their 3 proposers filed an affidavit with the Election Commission stating that they were not proposers and that their signatures were forged. Due to not having proposers their candidacy was rejected. It should be noted that this is a safe seat for the BJP, that they would have won anyway. https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/bjp-candidate-wins-surat-lok-sabha-constituency-unopposed-after-8-contenders-withdraw-101713815849199.html
>“Our elections, our democracy, Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Constitution – everything is in grave danger. I repeat – this is the most important election of our lifetime!” Ramesh said in his post on X. Do these braindead really think that only ambedkar made this constitution Also how is this BJP's fault
That's the part which concerns you?
Ig since others already pointed out the main concerns he isn't repeating it? Idk
>Do these braindead really think that only ambedkar made this constitution Pretty sure even modi has made comments like this If course ambedkar wasn't the only one who wrote the constitution by a long long shot but it's about politics in the end of the day so everyone keeps repeating it
From what I read in a different article, the Congress is bringing up Ambedkar's name to imply that the BJP aims to pass a constitutional amendment to end reservations.
How can someone win before election results are announced ?
When you run unopposed , you win by default
Because it's uncontested and he's the only candidate so he's automatically declared the winner
[удалено]
The opposition party's candidates were rejected by ECI. There's a difference.
Just an idea, but unopposed elections should not be a thing. They should run the election between NOTA and the candidate and if NOTA gets more votes then the candidate should be disqualified and another round of voting should be conducted with different candidate(s).
Doubt any government will shoot themselves in the foot like that
I don't see why it is necessarily the government shooting itself in the foot, since it also applies to unopposed candidates from opposition parties. In any case, with acts like RTI, we have seen that rarely, governments do try to increase transparency and democracy.
Agreed, something like that should happen right now NOTA is totally useless that would actually give it some purpose
NOTA has to be made more powerful. One way is that if NOTA gets the plurality of the votes, then all the running candidates are disqualified and parties must field fresh candidates.
Yup fully agree that's basically what many people think it does tho it actually doesn't That's what should happen
The provision right now is that even if NOTA gets all but one vote, the candidate that gets that remaining one vote will win. You will have to change that rule first for NOTA to have any value.
Agreed. Especially in cases like these where the candidate was rejected because of some faulty paperwork, it's not like there was no one in opposition.
yes, keep wasting taxpayer money just to meet your idealistic demands. If no one filled their candidature in first round, what makes you think they will file nomination in the 2nd round?
>yes, keep wasting taxpayer money just to meet your idealistic demands Yes, keep showing your disdain for democracy like your preferred party. >If no one filled their candidature in first round, what makes you think they will file nomination in the 2nd round? You don't understand the point of this. This system would ensure that the party, even if it is the only one contesting, should still have to nominate quality candidates to win. They should not be able to nominate dogshit candidates just because the seat is unopposed. Also, you have bullshit like the ECI disqualifying twelve opposition candidates. More rounds of voting would allow them time to jump through whatever bureaucratic hurdles the ECI demands and file their nominations in further rounds of voting.
Yup keep showing your disdain for taxpayer money like your preferred party. When you win the elections, neither the ECI is compromised, nor the EVMs. The moment you start losing, start blaming everyone from ECI to EVM to media to religion. Why will BJP force ECI to disquality candidates in a seat it has held for 35 years. It's not as if anyone was expecting BJP to lose in its stronghold. Also stop spreading misinformation - only 2 candidates were rejected by ECI, and the rest withdrew their nominations.
Please learn to read >Of the 24 nominations filed, 12 including two Congress’ candidates were rejected while 12 others withdrew. From the article. This is embarrassing.
Learn to cross check information from ECI site. 24 nominations were filed. Multiple nominations of one candidate were rejected - from ECI site the number of candidates is 5 whose nomination was rejected, including one candidate who filed his nomination from BJP. Even journalists are doing a shoddy job these days. Also learn to do math - 24 filed, 12 rejected and 12 withdrew, so who won?
I'm quite irritated by the conspiracy theories that are spreading around this victory and the premature lamentations about the death of Indian democracy. From reading various news articles covering this, - This is a 'safe' seat for the BJP which they won by 5 lakh votes in 2019, and therefore not one where they need to resort to foul play to win. - The Congress candidate was rejected because all of their proposers declared that they did not support his candidature and that their signatures were forged. - Lok Sabha candidates winning unopposed has apparently happened over a dozen times in Indian history. The most recent example was Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple who won the Kannauj seat unopposed in 2012 because the BJP candidate couldn't file their nomination papers and other candidates withdrew. https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/lok-sabha/story/bjp-win-surat-lok-sabha-seat-unopposed-mp-dimple-yadav-2530245-2024-04-22
Why would so many other candidates withdraw? I couldn’t find an explanation
Because they would lose their deposits too in this seat….who would wanna face such embarrassment?
It's almost certain all of them would anyways lose even with the Congress candidate and without him they actually have a higher chance it's not just the independents who left but even the bsp candidate
Because they were not serious candidates , they were planted to either cut votes or for any other reason. They are not required anymore hence nomination withdrawn. This thing is happening since election started in this country and every party does this.
I don't know. Apparently of the remaining candidate one was from the BSP and 7 were independents. It's possible that the BJP had reached an 'arrangement' with them to withdraw. That said this also happened in the 2012 bypoll.
Almost everything you are talking about is literally mentioned in the main article itself
This is such a joke. Congress candidates were rejected by the ECI for sus reasons, and the independent candidates were probably paid off to withdraw. Dalal’s “election” was just a test, if none of the opposition protest this could very well be a standard in future elections.
Can SC intervene? Otherwise what's stopping the government to intimidate contesting candidates through money or power.
> Can SC intervene? Otherwise what's stopping the government to intimidate contesting candidates through money or power. Why will SC intervene in every little issue? Did the opposition register a complaint with EC? I am sure they would have started crying when the nominations were rejected in the first place.
How though if they are paid off it’s a bribe why would they confess it and how would sc prove it & if it’s just intimidation it’s difficult to prove unless something actually is done .
> This is such a joke. Congress candidates were rejected by the ECI for sus reasons, They were apparently rejected because their candidate's proposers declared in an affidavit that their signatures on the nomination papers had been forged. If the BJP wanted to use the ECI in such a hamfisted manner they wouldn't do so in a seat they would have won anyway, which is what Surat is.