symbolic photo.

A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate was again declared the winner on Saturday in the counting of votes for a ward seat of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) in Gujarat.

After the order of the Supreme Court on the petition of the Congress candidate, the counting of votes was held here again.

It has been more than a year since the corporation elections were held.

Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation elections were held in January 2021.

Congress candidate Jagdish Mohanani lost to Geetaben Chavda of BJP in the recounting of votes held on Saturday in ward number 14 of Kubernagar in compliance with the Supreme Court order.

An official of the State Election Commission said, "The number of votes polled by both the candidates remained unchanged from the counting of votes held in February last year.

Geetaben Chavda won by getting 17,656 votes, while Mohanani got 16,992 votes.

Earlier on April 26, the Supreme Court had ordered re-counting of votes "as per due process to remove all doubts in the election process".

Mohanani was declared the first winner in the counting of votes held on February 23 last year as the votes cast in the ninth round were not tallied due to a clerical error.

A few days later, on 26 February, the Returning Officer issued an order stating that Chavda was the de facto winner with the maximum number of votes and Mohanani was wrongly declared the winner due to an "arithmetic error" by the Returning Officer.

Mohanani had then approached the Gujarat High Court seeking to modify his decision by declaring another candidate elected after the declaration of the results under the provisions of the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation (Conduct of Elections) Rules, 1994. was challenged.

In the local bodies elections held in January last year, the ruling BJP had won 159 seats in the AMC and the Congress 24 seats.