Geniben Thakor, who broke Congress’s Gujarat jinx, crowdsourced her campaign

While Geniben Thakor is being hailed as a ‘giant slayer’ for giving Congress its first Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat in a decade, she did not have an easy campaign. Thakor, contesting her debut Lok Sabha polls despite financial constraints, had to crowdfund her campaign as she did not get financial backing from the Congress.

Geniben Thakor defeated the BJP’s Rekha Chaudhari by a margin of 30,406 votes in Banaskantha to become the first Congress MP in Gujarat in 10 years. Chaudhari is an engineering professor and the granddaughter of Galbabhai Chaudhary, who established the Banas Dairy in 1969.

The BJP won the Banaskantha Lok Sabha seat in both 2019 and 2014.

Thakor’s win assumes importance as Gujarat has been a veritable fortress for the BJP. The BJP won all the 26 seats in both 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Seen as humble and approachable, Geniben Thakor joined the Congress as a grassroots worker. She made her electoral debut in 2012 when she unsuccessfully contested the Gujarat Assembly elections from Vav constituency.

In 2017, even as the BJP swept the state, Geniben defeated BJP strongman and Banas Dairy chairperson Shakar Chaudhary from Vav constituency. In the next election, she again won the constituency.