IT’S STILL ADVANTAGE BJP
THE PATEL, OBC AND DALIT PRESSURE GROUPS ARE NOT SEEN HELPING THE CONGRESS MUCH
projecting Bharatsinh Solanki as a CM candidate as his father Madhavsinh Solanki was the architect of the formula, which it believes alienated the party from the Patidars.
Modi has made the BJP a more inclusive party, making inroads into most communities, including the Muslims (the party got 22 per cent of their vote in 2012). The Congress is trying to capitalise on the Patel-BJP rift by wooing community leaders. It has deployed Siddharthbhai Patel, son of ex-CM Chimanbhai Patel, to do the spadework.
With Alpesh formally joining the Congress, the party will be banking on the over 26 per cent OBC Kshatriya votes in the state. The Congress also hopes to gain the support of the state’s 7 per cent Dalit population. In the 13 constituencies reserved for Dalits, the BJP performed better than the Congress in the last three polls. But the Una incident of last year, where seven Dalits were flogged for skinning a dead cow, could change all that. Interestingly, Una has been a Congress seat for the past 15 years. A CSDS survey says the party increased its vote share among Scheduled Tribes from 56 per cent in 2007 to 65 per cent in 2012.
The Congress campaign in Gujarat also received a major boost in May with Kannada actor Divya Spandana, popularly known as Ramya, being made head of the social media team. The team racked up some impressive successes against the BJP—a ‘Vikas Gone Crazy’ campaign lampooning the vikas plank provoked ripostes from PM Modi and finance minister Arun Jaitley. It even had the saffron party crafting a new ‘I am Vikas, I am Gujarat’ counter-campaign.
The party has empowered local leaders to help with ticket distribution. Siddharthbhai is chairman of the campaign committee and Madhusudan Mistry heads the manifesto committee. Shaktisinh Gohil is chairman of the election media committee. It has even borrowed Amit Shah’s tactics to mobilise booth volunteers to help get dedicated voters.
The real challenge for the Congress is to woo the urban voter. In a state like Gujarat, with 42 per cent urban population, the BJP has a stranglehold on 110 urban and semiurban seats. Issues like water, electricity, and the struggles of farmers or tribals don’t exist in the cities. In 2012, the BJP managed a near-clean sweep, winning 42 of the 46 seats in Surat, Bhavnagar, Rajkot, Vadodara, Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar.
One urban strategy is to catch student/ youth voters who can play key roles in this election. The Congress has been campaigning in colleges and professional institutes and holding ward-level meetings in urban and semi-urban assembly seats. The plan is to corner the Rupani government and PM Modi on issues like campus violence, high cost of private education and the deteriorating standards of government institutes.
This is all part of a multi-pronged strategy. The party’s election manifesto has promised 16 hours of power supply instead of the eight hours now to the agriculture sector and also a loan waiver to the farmers. Says Bharatsinh, “There is unrest in all sections of society because of the BJP’s tanashahi and mismanagement. They talk about GDP, we talk about happiness index which is what is needed.” No wonder then, the Congress slogan is: ‘Congress aave chhe, navsarjan laave chhe (Congress is coming, and coming with a new order)’ and ‘Khush rahe Gujarat (Let Gujarat be happy)’.
But as in the BJP, much will depend on ticket distribu-
tion. In past elections, there have been allegations of tickets being sold. But this time, with two no-nonsense, clean men at the helm in Solanki and Gohil, this is no longer a possibility. While distributing tickets, keeping the caste factor in mind will be a challenge as the Patels, whom it is now wooing, have traditionally kept away from the party. With Hardik’s alleged ‘understanding’ with the Congress, it might give more tickets to Patels this time on the promise that he will help them win. But herein lies the catch: doing this could scare away traditional voters, like the OBC Kshatriyas. Says Thakar: “The big challenge in the Congress strategy is wooing both Patels and Thakores, who are opposed to each other.”
Then there is the problem of oneupmanship. The departure of Vaghela has helped the Congress as it has brought some sanity and a break from the constant infighting when he was present. But one-upmanship remains. It is said of the Gujarat Congress that there are more leaders in the party than workers. The PCC has one executive president in Bharat Solanki and four other working presidents. It also has 47 secretaries, 24 general secretaries and 17 vice-presidents.
THE SPOILERS
A whole host of new political leaders and one old stalwart have upended the traditional straight fight between the Congress and the BJP. There is Vaghela, of course, who left the Congress in July and then hijacked 13 more party MLAs and voted against the Congress in the subsequent Rajya Sabha polls. Vaghela’s newly-floated Janvikalp Party is believed to have the BJP’s tacit support and will field candidates in all 182 constituencies. It could cut into the Congress’s OBC Kshatriya votes.
But while the Congress has only one spoiler to look out for, the BJP has three. It fears the troika of Hardik Patel, Jignesh Mevani and Alpesh Thakore more than it does the Congress. But it also gives the party an opportunity, however feeble, to play victim, projecting their coming together as an unprincipled alliance. In previous elections, PM Modi would project himself as the victim of anti-Hindutva forces. The meteoric rise of the trio has coincided with Modi’s departure from Gujarat. BJP leaders say such figures could not have risen if Modi had been in the state. Both Hardik, 23, and Alpesh, 42, are from Viramgam, a historic town 60 km west of Ahmedabad famous since early medieval Solanki-era lake. Interestingly, both know each other well. Alpesh’s father Khodaji Thakore had left the BJP along with his leader Shankersinh Vaghela and joined the Congress in 1995. In 2014, after the success of his anti-liquor campaign
FOR THE CONGRESS, THE REAL CHALLENGE IS TO WOO THE URBAN VOTER. GUJARAT HAS A 42% URBAN POPULATION, AND THE BJP HAS A STRANGLEHOLD IN THESE SEATS
with the Gujarat Thakore Sena, Alpesh formed the OSS (OBCSC-ST) Ekta Manch to take up the problems of farmers and unemployed youth, before joining the Congress last week. His campaign had forced the Gujarat government to strengthen the state’s anti-liquor laws in 2016.
The Congress, however, won’t be able to take advantage of Alpesh if it doesn’t handle its ticket distribution skillfully. Analysts feel that Hardik may be a more formidable political factor than Alpesh because although he is from a smaller community, he has a committed following among the youngsters in his community. In fact, Hardik has divided the Patidars along age lines—the older Patels feel the community has progressed under the BJP. The youth are with Hardik.
Hardik has enjoyed a fairy tale ascent. It all started when his sister faced problems in getting admission in Ahmedabad despite having good marks. He then took a vow that he would win OBC reservation status for the Patel community. After his first rally in Visnagar in north Gujarat in July 2015, he soon floated PAAS, his own independent organisation.
Patel owes his rise to the unprovoked beating of PAAS members by police after a mega rally in August 2015. In the subsequent violence, 10 Patel boys and a couple of policemen were killed. Charged with waging war against the nation, he was externed from Gujarat and imprisoned for nine months. Meanwhile, the state announced 10 per cent reservation for the economically backward classes (EBC), a decision which was challenged in court in the light of the Supreme Court cap of 49 per cent reservation. Hardik remained adamant resulting in the exit of Anandiben Patel as CM, following the BJP’s losses in the district and taluka panchayat polls in 2015. Last month, the government withdrew the police cases against PAAS members. Hardik continues to draw huge crowds of Patel youth giving the jitters to BJP leaders and has apparently drawn up a plan to defeat the party’s Patel MLAs in the coming elections.
Jignesh Mevani, 34, a lawyer-cum-Dalit activist from a village near Mehsana in north Gujarat, could be the peripheral player among the trio, even though he is very articulate. This is because Dalits are only 7.5 per cent of the population in Gujarat and a significant number of them are already with the Congress. His strength, however, lies in his ability to raise an anti-BJP coalition. Mevani’s connect with the Dalit Samaj after the Una incident is intense as he had toured the Dalit areas across the state after the incident, even taking out a statewide Dalit asmita (pride) rally where 20,000 Dalits vowed to leave their traditional profession of skinning dead animals. A new political leader was born. Worryingly for the BJP, these spoilers could be the game changers in Gujarat.