All Shiv Sena candidates in Gujarat polls lose 'deposit'

Mumbai: Shiv Sena, a bickering ally of the BJP, recorded a dismal performance in Gujarat, with all the 42 candidates it fielded for the Assembly polls in the state losing their deposit amount paid for filing their nomination papers.

A candidate who fails to get more than one-sixth of the total number of valid votes polled by all the candidates does not get back the deposit amount he paid for filing nomination.

All the candidates put up by the Sena in the keenly contested election secured 33,893 votes, a party leader said.

"Of these 42, eleven candidates got more than 1,000 votes. Samrat Patil from Limbayat polled 4,075 votes, the highest votes secured by a Sena candidate in this election," he said.

This was not the first time that the Sena, which has been critical of its alliance partner BJP, faced a debacle in the Gujarat election.

"In 2007, Sena fielded 33 candidates in Gujarat and all lost," the leader said, attributing the latest poll fiasco to paucity of time for poll campaign.

"We barely got 15 days for campaign. This period was too short. Our performance could have been better had we got three to four months to do the groundwork in Gujarat," he said.

In the 182-member Gujarat Assembly, BJP retained power by bagging 99 seats, Congress improved its tally by winning 77 seats.