Geniben Thakor's Unique Campaign: Crowdsourcing for Banaskantha Lok Sabha Seat | Gujarat Elections 2024

Geniben Thakor, the Congress candidate running for the Banaskantha Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat, has been pleading with residents of the area for financial assistance in order to pay for her election campaign costs.

The current Congress MLA for Vav in the Banaskantha district, Thakor, said she has gotten a tonne of support for crowdsourcing her election campaign, covering the cost of her car's gasoline and setting up public gatherings.

She stated at a rally on Friday that a lot of people have come forward in the 40 days since she started her campaign to pay whatever they could towards her election expenditures, which may total up to Rs 50 lakh.

Thakor faces up against Rekha Chaudhary, a professor at an engineering college and first-time candidate for the Bharatiya Janata Party, in Banaskantha.

Gujarat's 26 Lok Sabha seats will all be up for election in a single phase on May 7.

"The people of Banaskantha have my gratitude. People from various groups throughout the district's 14 talukas have taken it upon themselves to pay for all kinds of tasks, such as putting up pavilions for public meetings, food, and drinks, over the last month and a half, Thakor remarked at a gathering two days ago.

The Congress candidate said that the people of Banaskantha are also covering the cost of the fuel needed for her car.

Notably, the Congress asked people to join the battle against joblessness and increasing expenses when it started the party's "Donate for Desh" crowdfunding campaign in December of last year.

In addition, Thakor has turned the impending Lok Sabha election into a matter of status for her fellow members of the Thakor caste.

"I may not have another opportunity if I don't win the election this time. To empower the community, I have the ticket to the Lok Sabha," the woman said.

Geniben Thakor lost to BJP heavyweight Shankar Chaudhary in the Vav seat in the 2012 state assembly elections by a margin of almost 12,000 votes.

During the 2017 assembly elections, Chaudhary lost to Thakor.

She defeated Swarupji Thakor of the BJP in 2022 to win her second election.

In 2019, the elders of Geniben Thakor's clan, spanning 12 villages in the Banaskantha district, issued an edict that prohibited intercaste marriages and the carrying of cell phones by single young women.

Following the alleged rape of a 14-month-old child in Gujarat in 2020, she said that "rapists must be burnt alive rather than being handed over to the police".

In addition to a by-election conducted in 2013, the BJP has won the Banaskantha seat three times in a row, in 1998, 1999, and 2013.

In the elections held in 1996, 2004 and 2009, the Congress won.