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In the 44-member council, the BJP bagged 19 seats in the recent local body polls to emerge the largest party. Independents won 17 wards and the AIMIM got seven, leaving one to the Congress.
The AIMIM, with support of the independents, staked claim to form the council and made independent councillor Sanjay Sony president of the body.
Apart from Godhra, the Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM bagged nine seats in Modasa, making it the main opposition in the municipal council. The party has also won a few seats in the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation.
The AIMIM entered Gujarat for the civic polls in collaboration with the Bharatiya Tribal Party of Chhotu Vasava, the tribal strongman of South Gujarat.
Godhra had one Congress councillor back in 2015, but with the support of 25 independents, it had taken control of the council leaving 18 BJP councillors to sit in the opposition. In the wake of the 2017 Rajya Sabha polls, Godhra MLA CK Raulji shifted his allegiance from the Congress to the BJP and moved to the state’s ruling party with seven councillors, which turned the table in favour of the BJP.
Speaking to ET, AIMIM Gujarat president Shabbir Kabliwala said his party was in touch with the independents in Godhra and had kept all the 17 of them along with its own councillors in a safe house ahead of staking claim, to foil any attempts of the BJP to woo them.
“Also, Asaduddin Owaisi had extensively campaigned in the town and we reaped the benefit of it during the election as we did in other places,” Kabliwala said, adding that the party would now be gearing up for the assembly elections next year.
The entry of the AIMIM as well as the Aam Aadmi Party in Gujarat dealt a lethal blow to the Congress in the recently held civic polls, where the party was practically decimated all over the state.
In the Surat Municipal Corporation, the Congress failed to win a single seat, leaving the AAP with 27 councillors to fill in the opposition space.
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