Bhavnagar Lok Sabha Constituency
Constituency number: 15
Total electors: 15,94,531
Female electors: 7,59,960
Male electors: 8,34,571
Reserved: No
Delimited: Yes. Ghogha Assembly segment was dissolved to create a new seat, Bhavnagar Rural in 2008.
Assembly constituencies: Talaja, Palitana, Bhavnagar Rural, Bhavnagar East, Bhavnagar West, Gadhda (SC), Botad.
Results in last four Lok Sabha elections: The seat has been a BJP stronghold since 1991. BJP’s Rajendrasinh Ghanshyamsinh Rana was at its helm from 1996 to 2014. In 2014, saffron party candidate Bharatiben Dhirubhai Shiyal became the first woman MP of the seat, defeating Congress’ Pravinbhai Jinabhai Rathod.
Demographics: The constituency covers almost the entire district of Bhavnagar. Located in southeastern Gujarat, in the Saurashtra peninsula, it has a population of 28,80,365 people in the district. Though it is a Hindu-majority state (91.39 percent), the Muslim population stands at 2.13 lakh. The seven Assembly constituencies of Bhavnagar district have around 16.26 lakh voters. The largest caste group in the district is the Koli Patels, an OBC community with nearly 3.91 lakh voters. With 1.61 lakh voters, Patidars form the second largest caste group, followed by non-Rajput Kshatriyas with 1.05 lakh voters.