BJP Turns Poacher For Parliamentary Power In Gujarat !

 BY  R.K.MISRA

The BJP bagged all the 26 lok sabha seat in Gujarat in 2014.  A repeat feat is almost impossible in 2019. So it begs, borrows  and steals !

As general elections 2019 near, the BJP credo of a ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’(Congress free India) , enunciated by its   president Amit shah at the beginning of the term seems to have petered  into a ‘Congress yukt  Bhajap’ (Congress colonized BJP)as it nears the end. This may be less noticeable in other states but is more so in Gujarat , his home state as well as that of  Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The BJP which prides itself on being a cadre-based party sees no problems in cannibalizing from the Congress. After It worked overtime, to win over Kunvarji Bavaliya, a senior leader  of the Gujarat Congress, it had early this February inducted Asha Patel, Congress legislator from Unjha constituency in North Gujarat. Patel quit the party and her seat  to join the BJP soon after. 

Not content, the poaching continued into March when Congress legislator from Manavadar, Jawahar Chavda was sworn in a cabinet minister within 24 hours of quitting his Vidhan Sabha seat. Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, another Congress legislator who was one of 14 Congress legislators who had quit just before the Rajya Sabha elections in 2017 was  awarded with the rank of a minister of state. 

Now turncoats from the Congress account for 40 per cent of the BJP ministers in the Vijay Rupani cabinet in Gujarat !

Why the hurry to engineer defections when the ruling party enjoys a majority? It is because  despite its boisterous muscle-flexing , the BJP is insecure inside. The Congress performance in the 2017 lok sabha elections in the state left it shaken. Both Saurashtra and South Gujarat proved their achilles heel. And so the need to induce desertions, more to weaken the Congress then to strengthen themselves.

Take the case of Asha Patel’s Unjha constituency of North Gujarat. It is part of the Mehsana lok sabha constituency. Of the seven vidhan sabha constituencies in this lok sabha constituency, the BJP holds four and the Congress held three. Interestingly prime minister Narendra Modi’s hometown Vadnagar is part of Unjha constituency. Both Vadnagar and BJP president Amit Shah’s hometown, Mansa had elected Congress legislators in 2017.

 Asha Patel  who was at one time considered close to PAAS leader Hardik Patel was elected in the backdrop of the patidar  pro-reservation agitation in 2017 defeating Narayan Lalu Patel of the BJP. Narayan, a die-hard BJP veteran, is learnt to be extremely upset at her induction as are many other saffron cadres who are up in arms. Her induction has been done with the single point aim of defeating the Congress in Mehsana lok sabha seat where it had acquired clout in the aftermath of the pro-reservation patidar agitation for quota in admissions to educational institutions as well as in government jobs. A defeat for the BJP in a constituency which comprises the prime minister’s hometown is not something that Modi would find palatable.

Pure caste considerations  are behind Jawahar Chavda’s desertion. The BJP wants to lay hands   on a ready-made ahir caste vote-bank to help it in Junagadh and Porbandar lok sabha constituencies of Saurashtra region.Ditto Purshottam Sabariya, Dhrangadhra MLA and  Vallabh Dhavariya ,MLA from Jamnagar(rural).

Similar considerations induced the BJP top brass to get Kunvarji Bavaliya to switch -over to the BJP and make him a full fledged cabinet minister within hours. He quit the  Jasdan Assembly seat that he had won in 2017 on a Congress ticket and re-contested it  as a BJP minister. Likewise the Rajput vote-bank in Jamnagar through Jadeja and Dhavariya where Patidar youth leader  Hardik Patel, recently inducted into the Congress, may contest.

It was a delicious irony to see the BJP put all its might behind a long standing Congressman Bavaliya -after fielding him as their candidate-to get him elected. A five time Congress MLA ,he was also elected Congress MP in 2009 though he lost in 2014 but was elected to the Assembly in 2017.

The reason is learnt to be two-fold. For one, the BJP had for long been looking for a replacement koli leader for fisheries minister Purshottam Solanki who has now become a millstone round their neck. A warrant has been issued against Solanki by the anti-corruption court after he failed to appear before it  in connection with the Rs 400 crore fisheries scam which took place when he was a minister under chief minister Modi in Gujarat. Bavaliya also a koli leader who took over as the president of the community’s national body after Ramnath Kovind became President, is intended to be his replacement.

After Modi took over as chief minister in Gujarat in 2001,the Congress has lost 28 leaders to the BJP and 16 MLAs  since the 2012 vidhan sabha elections. Vithal Radadiya against whom a case was filed after he raised a gun at a toll booth in Gujarat became a saffron darling after he joined the BJP in 2014. Likewise his son Jayesh Radadiya,also made a cabinet minister . Fourteen MLA s of the Congress led by former chief minister Shankersinh Vaghela had resigned ahead of the August 8, 2017 rajya sabha polls in which Congress leader Ahmed Patel was a contestant and barely managed to scrape through. Of the 14,three legislators Balwantsinh Rajput, Tejshreeben Patel and Prahlad Patel-had joined the BJP before the rajya sabha elections, while eight others joined the BJP later. Shankersinh Vaghela did not join the BJP but his son Mahendrasinh did ,only to quit a disenchanted man. Shankersinh is now the NCP national general secretary.

Five of the seven congress defectors who contested the 2017 elections on a BJP ticket lost and one managed to scrape through by only 258 votes.

The main reason that the BJP is suffering from an attack of nerves in Gujarat is that it knows that it is impossible to repeat it’s 2014 lok sabha performance of sweeping all the 26 seats in the state. This is more so after Amit Shah’s boast of winning a record 150 of the total 182 vidhan sabha seats in 2017 fell flat and the Rahul Gandhi- led  election campaign saw the Congress bag 77 seats(After the latest defections it is now down to 71 seats) and the BJP tally is   reduced to 99 seat(now 100 after Bavaliya’s by-election victory). What is of critical importance is that the BJP margin of victory in 15  of these 99 seats was less than 3000 votes so it is now strategizing to weaken the Congress rather than strengthen itself.

A very thin line separates victory from defeat. And this is the reason the BJP is doing  what it is now best at- poaching !