It was in 1989 when BJP first won the Gandhinagar seat with Sankersinh Vaghela as its candidate. Although the seat was known for its association with the BJP patriarch L.K. Advani, it was also won by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Vijaybhai Patel. Advani represented the seat six times, continuously since 1998. In the 2014 elections, Advani had received one of the highest vote shares of 68 per cent and defeated the Congress candidate Kiritbhai Patel by a huge margin of 483,121 votes. The lowest vote share BJP received in Gandhinagar under Advani was 54.89 per cent in 2009.

In March earlier this year, BJP made it clear that it’ll be dropping Advani from the list when it announced BJP president Amit Shah’s name from Gandhinagar. The former Deputy Prime Minister in the Vajpayee government was among the 10-odd leaders above the age of 75 whom the party dropped this time. Advani was reportedly “extremely upset” about the way the exercise was conducted and no big leader had contacted him about the snub. Shah, on the other hand, will be contesting against C.J. Chavda, a lightweight pitted against him by the Congress. Shah was seen more outside Gandhinagar, leading campaigns and crisscrossing the country, rather than spending time in his constituency that is considered safe.