While some feel Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel is being unfair to them by describing the mandate as ``a positive vote for the BJP'', others are suffering twinges of conscience.

A senior BJP councillor, lately in charge of managing votes at 10-odd polling stations in a particular Assembly segment in Bharuch, told Express Newsline he was ashamed to be in the party. ``The workers, mostly from Surat, cast bogus votes, bribed rival parties' poll agents, polling officers and even policemen'', he said.

While claiming he himself hadn't cast a single bogus vote, another councillor admitted that at least 10 per cent of the votes cast in the Ankleshwar assembly segment -- where the highest number of votes were polled -- were fake. ``If we wanted to, we could have captured the booths. The entire government machinery was with us. No one could have stopped us'', he said.

Another senior councillor, who claims to be spearheading a fight against corruption, actually had no qualms about showing off an ink-mark on his finger-nail as evidence of the fact that he had cast a vote as well.

The SMC's lone Congress councillor Bhupendra Solanki said he had complained to Chief Electoral Officer Balwant Singh about the malpractices. ``They (BJP councillors) reduced the democratic exercise to a farce'', he alleged, describing the BJP victory as a ``fraud''.

In the end the BJP won, but victory is not as sweet as it could have been. After all, the councillors know how the seat was won.

A cynical observer remarked that if the BJP councillors worked as hard for the city as they did in Bharuch, Surat would be a better place to live in.