Vadodara Lok Sabha seat of Gujarat was much discussed in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Then Narendra Modi, who was contesting the Lok Sabha elections for the first time, had contested from here along with Banaras and had won. Once again Vadodara is in the news regarding the withdrawal of ticket of the BJP candidate here. Vadodara (Baroda) of Gujarat was earlier the fort of Congress Party and later it has become the stronghold of BJP. BJP has been winning here continuously since 1998. Bharatiya Janata Party has been registering victory continuously for the last seven times. Ranjanben Bhatt has won here in 2019, this is his second consecutive victory. In 2019, Ranjanben Bhatt defeated Prashant Chandubhai Patel of Congress.
Ranjanben Bhatt had registered a unilateral victory here, he got 72.3% votes while his nearest rival Prashant Chandubhai Patel got only 24.1% votes. The Bahujan Samaj Party candidate who stood third here did not get even one percent of the votes.
In 2019, BJP's Ranjanben Bhatt defeated Prashant Chandubhai Patel by 5,89,177 votes. While BJP's Ranjanben Bhatt got 883,719 votes, Congress' Chandubhai Patel got 294,542 votes, third place BSP's Rohit Madhusudan Mohanbhai got 7,458 votes. Independent Sindhi Mahebubkhan Yusufkhan, who stood fourth, got 4,457 votes, while Yuva Jan Jagriti Party's Gohil Rinku, who stood fifth, got only 3,811 votes. Earlier in the by-election held in 2014, BJP's Ranjanben Dhananjay Bhatt had defeated Narendra Ambalal Rawat by 3,29,507 votes.
Narendra Modi had won from Vadodara in 2014. Narendra Modi defeated Madhusudan Mistry of Congress by 5,70,128 votes. In 2014, Sunil Digambar Kulkarni of Aam Aadmi Party stood third and got only 10,101 votes. Along with Vadodara, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also contested elections from Banaras and won from there also. Later, when Narendra Modi resigned from Vadodara Lok Sabha seat, Ranjanben Bhatt won the by-election held here.
In the first elections held in Vadodara in 1952, independent Indubhai Amin had won. After this, Fatehsingrao Gaekwad of Congress Party had won the elections held in 1957 and 1962. In 1967, independent Pasha Bhai Patel had won. After this, in 1971 and 1977, Fateh Singhrao Gaikwad won twice on Congress ticket, in 1980 and 1984, Ranjit Singh Gaikwad reached the Lok Sabha on Congress ticket. In 1989, Prakash Brahmbhatt of Janata Dal won. After this, in 1991, Deepika Chikhalia became MP on BJP ticket. Deepika Chikhalia is famous for playing the role of Mother Sita in the religious epic, Ramayana. In 1996, Satyajit Singh Gaikwad reached Parliament from the Congress Party. After this, Jayaben Thakkar won in 1998, 1999 and 2004. Balkrishna Shukla in 2009, Balkrishna Shukla in 2014. Narendra Modi registered victory here.
According to the 2011 census, the population of Vadodara district is approximately 41.5 lakh. Here 78.92 percent of the population is literate, in which the male literacy rate is 85.39 percent while the female literacy rate is 72.03 percent. There are seven assembly constituencies in Vadodara Lok Sabha constituency - Sayajiganj, Waghodia, Raopura, Manjalpur, Savli, Akota and
Vadodara city is included. There are total 17,94,896 voters in Vadodara. In this, the number of male voters is 8,72,170 while the number of female voters is 9,22,593. There are 133 third gender voters here. In 2019, the total voting percentage here was 68.10%.
When BJP's Ranjanben Bhatt got a chance to contest elections for the third time, a controversy started here, where senior BJP leader and former mayor of the city Jyotiben Pandya openly rebelled. After this BJP has suspended Pandya. Meanwhile, Ranjanben Bhatt refused to contest the elections citing personal reasons. Vadodara is the third most populous city of Gujarat. Vadodara is also called Baroda. Lakshmi Vikas Mahal here is quite famous.
