LOTUS SUTRA
The BJP’s sweep of local body elections signals its resurgence in Gujarat. Will the result set the tone for the assembly poll next year?
Will the BJP’s landslide victory in the local body election set the tone for the assembly poll next year?
When C.R. Patil took over as president of the state unit of the BJP in Gujarat in July 2020, he had only one major achievement to his credit—winning the Navsari Lok Sabha seat by 689,000 votes, the highest victory margin in general elections in India. This year, on February 28, Patil scored another feat as he steered the BJP to a clean electoral sweep in all 31 zilla panchayats in Gujarat. The opposition Congress drew a blank, its first such humiliation in the state’s history.
The local body elections also saw the BJP win all six municipal corporations, 75 of 81 municipal councils and 196 of 231 taluka panchayats. Chief Minister Vijay Rupani says his party now administers “90 per cent of Gujarat’s territory”. Indeed, if these election results were to be extended to assembly seats, the BJP would win 164 of the total 182 assembly segments. The party’s current strength in the assembly is 111. Assembly election is due in the state in end2022.
Clearly, the entry of two new parties failed to dent the
BJP’s prospects. Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won 27 seats in the Surat Municipal Corporation polls while Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM (All India MajliseIttehadulMuslimeen) secured seven seats in the Ahmedabad civic body elections. “Both parties ate into Congress votes. We needn’t be worried,” asserts Patil.
The BJP is comfortable in a way it hasn’t been in three years. In the December 2017 assembly election, a resurgent Congress had won 77 seats, 16 more than in 2012. The BJP retained power, but its tally of 99 seats was just seven more than the simple majority mark and 16 seats fewer than in the 2012 election.
Two years earlier, in 2015, a massive agitation by the Patidar community, which constitutes 15 per cent of the state’s population, for quota in govern
ment jobs had cost the BJP seven of the 31 zilla panchayats. But the party appears to have regained its base. The Congress failed to capitalise on the quota agitation in the absence of a mass leader. Twelve of its MLAs joined the BJP in the past two years, taking the saffron party’s strength to 111 MLAs.
Five years on, the Patidar agitation is on its deathbed and the Patel community is back in the BJP fold. The BJP used back channels to convey to the Patidars that even if they went against it, the party wouldn’t lose an election as it enjoyed the solid backing of OBCs (Other Backward Classes). Simultaneously, Prime Minister Narendra Modi projected Nitin Patel, Rupani’s deputy and the most influential Patel leader, as the future of the state. Gradually, the Patidars began losing hope in the Congress, which was struggling to keep its own house in order, and signalled a truce with the BJP.
Rupani says a quick solution to the Patidars’ basic demand of reservation helped douse the fire. The government brought Patidars within the ambit of 10 per cent quota for upper caste poor, launched an entrepreneurship scheme for upper caste youth and reduced fees in selffunded educational institutes. “The Patidars realised that those leading the agitation had a political agenda,” says Rupani. (See ‘What we promise, we deliver on time’)
The poll rout exposed the tensions within the Congress, with Hardik Patel, the 27yearold face of the Patel agitation who was made the party’s working president in Gujarat in July 2020, claiming he was kept out of the campaign. “I was not given any programme or work by the Pradesh Congress Committee,” he told news agency PTI on March 7. Congress state chief Amit Chavda also quit after the verdict.
Compounding the Congress’s problems, the BJP broke into its rural strongholds. In 29 zilla panchayats, Congress seats failed to hit double digits. The party failed to open its account in Panchmahal, a onetime bastion.
Analysts say the disarray in the Congress may well have created a TINA (There is No Alternative) situation. “Not everyone in Gujarat is happy with the BJP, but they find no credible alternative,” says Shirish Kashikar, director, National Institute of Mass Communication and Journalism, Ahmedabad. “The BJP government’s development work also encourages them to vote for the party.”
A big chunk of the credit for the BJP’s victory goes to Rupani. A lowprofile politician from the minority Jain community, he was transport minister
in the Anandiben Patel cabinet. In 2016, he emerged as the consensus candidate for the top job when the BJP removed Anandiben amid the raging Patel quota stir. Rupani has since focused on development, ramping up Gujarat’s solar energy output, extending e-services to villages, fighting corruption and maintaining a hawk eye on delivery of welfare schemes (see Governance first).
The BJP also attributes its victory to the tough selection criteria for candidates. Patil decided not to field anyone who had completed three terms in a local body, was above 60 years of age or a relative of a party leader. He even denied a ticket to Sonal Modi, niece of PM Modi. “People like to see new faces in politics,” says Patil. “When I chose not to follow the set norms [of candidate selection], some people got sceptical. But I was confident of a resounding victory.” Patil’s confidence also came from the BJP’s victory in the bypolls to all eight assembly seats in November 2020.
Rupani adds that his government’s efforts to strengthen agriculture, industry and infrastructure had put the BJP on a strong wicket. He says that in the past four years, 32 lakh tonnes of farm produce worth Rs 17,000 crore were procured, 41 model residential schools built for tribal students and job fairs held to create employment for 1.1 million youth. Rupani is now pushing ahead with four desalination plants in parched Kutch. To be ready by 2023, these plants promise to supply potable water to 15 million people.
The state government’s decision to allow textile, chemicals, automobile, electronics, real estate and IT units to continue operations through the Covid lockdown also helped the BJP garner votes. “Industrial power consumption shot up by 11 per cent in the past one year in spite of the pandemic. That’s a sign of progress,” says Manoj Das, additional chief secretary (industry).
Patil, meanwhile, is plotting his third accomplishment—winning all 182 assembly seats next year. Rupani seconds the plan. “We will create a new record. Both the government and the party are ready to take that leap,” he says. ■