Porbandar pattern benefits Congress’s Arjun Modhwadia in elections

Since 1995, Porbandar has emerged as the only assembly constituency where voters elect a candidate for two terms consecutively and then change the MLA. In 1995, the BJP’s Babu Bokhiria won against Shashikant Lakhani of the Congress; that was Bokhiria’s first win in state assembly poll. Lakhani was the sitting MLA then. Porbandar voters elected Bokhiria again in 1998.This time Bokhiria defeated the Congress’s Arjun Modhwadia.
Bokhiria and Modhwadia next squared up in the electoral ring in 2002 and Modhwadia defeated Bokhiria. In 2007, Bokhiria could not contest as he had been arrested ahead of the poll in connection with an illegal land mining case. Modhwadia breezed through. After that, Bokhiria won in both 2012 and 2017 polls.
After giving two terms to Bokhiria, Porbandar voters have again changed their MLA and elected Modhwadia. Modhwadia defeated Bokhiria by a margin of 8,181 votes. This will be Modhwadia’s fourth term as Porbandar MLA. Political experts said in the 1998 election, it was a tough fight between Bokhiria, Modhwadia, and the All India Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Hiralal Shiyal. While Modhwadia was fighting state assembly polls for the first time. Shiyal was a powerful candidate. Bokhiria won 39,796 votes while Shiyal got 16,156 votes and stood second. Modhwadia was third with 12,039 votes. This was the first battle between Bokhiria and Modhwadia who are from the Mer community.
They added the Porbandar constituency has about 74,000 Mer voters, 34,000 Brahmin voters, 26,000 Kharwa voters, 17,000 scheduled caste voters, and 15,000 Muslim voters. The Mers plays a vital role in deciding the fate of this constituency’s candidate, followed by the Kharwa community.
Political observers said the 2022 poll was a tough battle for Modhwadia and Bokhiria as AAP’s candidate Jivan Jungi gave a tough fight. Porbandar voter turnout was 61. 98%, 4% lower than the 2017 turnout. They said normally low turnout means that the sitting leader retains the seat but in Porbandar it precipitated change.