Morning Pulse: Gandhinagar counts its votes as Mevani's two FIRs hang over the result

Gujarat wakes up to counting day. The ballots cast in Gandhinagar on Sunday are in sealed strong rooms and will be opened on Tuesday. The capital's campaign ended in two police cases against a sitting MLA. Overnight brought little that was new. That leaves the count, and the quiet that came after the noise, as the morning's story.

Counting for the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation is scheduled for today, 13 October, ETV Bharat Gujarat and IANS reported. The EVMs have been kept in strong rooms since polling closed. Results for the Okha and Thara municipalities and for the by-elections to vacant local body seats are also due. When this edition went out, no official trend or result had been published. Pulse does not predict winners.

The numbers set the stakes. DeshGujarat reported that 130 candidates contested 44 GMC seats across 11 wards, from an electorate of about 2.6 lakh. ETV Bharat put turnout at 59.25 percent, or 1,54,045 voters. Ward 4, where the Mevani dispute began, had the highest turnout at 74.78 percent, and Ward 5 the lowest at 48.63 percent. For context, DeshGujarat noted that in 2021 the BJP won 41 seats, the Congress two and AAP one. In Devbhumi Dwarka district, Okha voted for 32 of its 36 seats after four were filled unopposed, and Thara contested 24 seats across six wards. Bypolls covered single seats in Kheralu, Chhota Udepur and Bayad, along with seats in several district and taluka panchayats.

Last night we flagged whether police would summon or arrest Jignesh Mevani on either FIR. Neither has happened so far. An IANS report updated early on Tuesday, and a Deccan Herald report on the two cases, mentioned no arrest, summons or bail plea. One FIR was filed at the Pethapur police station and the other at Sector-7. Both accuse the Vadgam MLA and his supporters of obstructing police while officers questioned Ward 4 Congress candidate Yunus Parmar and his supporter Munaf Pathan. They also allege he kept campaigning after the campaign period had closed.

IANS now says both incidents happened on 8 October, two days before polling. Earlier reports by ANI and ETV Bharat had put one of them on 9 October. The date will matter if the cases come before a court. Mevani's public line has not changed. In a video statement reported by IANS, he called each FIR a medal and said police could register as many cases as they liked. We found no public comment from the BJP overnight, and no formal Congress party statement beyond Mevani's own.

In Ahmedabad, the search for the visually impaired ten-year-old girl who fell into an open drain near Pirana on Saturday evening was in its fourth day by Tuesday morning. Gujarat Samachar reported late on Monday that she had still not been found after more than 48 hours. It said fire crews in oxygen masks had gone into the line, which carries about 15 feet of water over 8 feet of sludge. Searchers had also checked the Gyaspur pumping station and three to four km of the Sabarmati's banks, and villages nearby were asked to report any sighting. ETV Bharat Gujarat also reported on Monday that the search had gone past 48 hours. Neither outlet reported an inquiry or a statement from the AMC leadership.

Later today, Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi is due to hand Indian citizenship certificates to 158 people at SAL Institute in Sola, according to the Ahmedabad district administration as reported by IANS and DeshGujarat. Gujarat Samachar also reported the ceremony. Of the 158, 126 are being granted citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act and 32 were registered through the Collector's office. They are from minority communities in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The district says it has issued more than 1,200 such certificates between 2017 and 2025.