AAP's CM face and former TV anchor Isudan Gadhvi lost to Congress's sitting MLA Vikram Madam in Khambhalia after he took an early lead on Thursday.
After four rounds of voting in the assembly polls, Gadhvi lost his seat by 19,000 votes as the Delhi-based party failed to make the big entry it promised in the western state.
Khambhalia emerged as one of the more high-profile seats in the Gujarat assembly elections after the AAP picked Isudan Gadhvi for this politically high-profile constituency in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat.
Formerly a popular television news anchor, Gadhvi chose to contest from Khambhalia where he was born and raised. But social equations of Ahir-dominated Khabhalia were not favourable to Gadhvi whose community is numerically not so significant.
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Both Madam of the Congress party and BJP's Bera come from the numerically strong Ahir community. Madam previously also enjoyed the support of Muslims, who constitute the second-largest voting bloc. This time around, they seem to have switched to the AAP. For the last several decades, only a member of the Ahir community has won from here. If Gadhvi eventually wins Khambhalia, he would have set a new record.
The BJP had won this seat in 2007 and 2012 but lost to Congress in a bypoll in 2014. The opposition party retained the seat in 2017.
