Four Congress turncoat MLAs, including former leader of opposition Arjun Modhwadia, and an independent legislator, all of whom resigned from the Gujarat assembly membership in the last few months, were on Tuesday fielded by the ruling BJP for bypolls in five constituencies.

These five seats — Vijapur, Porbandar, Manavadar, Khambhat and Vaghodia — fell vacant after their sitting MLAs, four from the Congress and one independent, resigned between December 2023 and March 2024 and subsequently joined the BJP. An official list declaring them to be BJP candidates for the bypolls to these five seats was issued by the party here.

The Congress MLAs who resigned were CJ Chavda (Vijapur), Arjun Modhwadia (Porbandar), Arvind Ladani (Manavadar) and Chirag Patel (Khambhat). Apart from them, independent MLA from Vaghodia, Dharmendrasinh Vaghela, had also resigned as legislator and joined the saffron party. Now, the BJP has chosen these five former MLAs to fight the bypolls on the party’s symbol from their respective seats. They all were elected as legislators after defeating BJP candidates in the assembly polls held in December 2022, in which the saffron party won 156 of the 182 seats. The Congress is yet to announce its candidates for these five assembly seats.

The by-elections for five out of six vacant assembly seats in Gujarat is scheduled on May 7, when voting would take place for all the 26 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state. The Election Commission has not declared bypoll on the Visavadar seat because a case about the election of its former MLA Bhupat Bhayani is pending before the Gujarat High Court. Bhayani, who won as the AAP candidate from the seat, also resigned in December and later joined the BJP.