Gujarat polls: Congress hopes to bring change in BJP's stronghold of Gandhinagar

Gandhinagar South has long been a stronghold of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s even as Congress's Himanshu Patel hopes to turn the tide on the back of pressing issues such as education, focus on rural areas and rumblings of annoyance within the ruling party over its nominee.

Tarapur, which has a population of a little over 2000, is located two kilometres from where the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation's jurisdiction ends.

Patel, who unsuccessfully contested against Union home minister Amit Shah in the 2002 assembly elections from Sarkhej, is banking on BJP's alleged apathy towards rural areas such as Tarapur.

The BJP has fielded Alpesh Thakor, an Other Backward Caste leader who came in limelight when he opposed the Patidar quota demand in 2015, in place of Shambhuji Thakor.

Alpesh Thakor joined the Congress ahead of the 2017 elections and won the polls from Radhanpur.

He defected to the BJP before the 2019 national polls and later lost to Congress's Raghu Desai in the October 2019 by poll.