Modi Magic : Amit Steps Into Advani 's Illustrious Shoes !
BY
R.K.MISRA
When
Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose Amit Shah as a replacement for BJP
veteran L.K. Advani from Gandhinagar lok sabha constituency for the 2019
general elections, it was more to recreate the Atal-Advani visual imagery in
governance than anything else.
.
Prime
Minister Modi is a great one for symbolisms as
image building tools . By replacing L.K.Advani with BJP party chief Amit Shah,
the obvious message sought to be conveyed is that the seat has been given to the national party president as a mark of respect
to the veteran leader who held it for seven
terms.
The
add-on is that after completion of his
second term as party chief, Shah may find place in the cabinet as a number two
if the BJP comes back to power at the Centre. The most enduring image that
still moves the Jan Sangh-BJP imagery is
the Atal Bihari Vajpayee- L.K.Advani
duo. Both images off course are a take-off from the original one in the
first government of independent India - Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru- to his
deputy Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. It would not be too far-fetched to see Modi and Shah trying to recreate the
same. Modi trusts Shah implicitly and few others this way. The combination came to be forged
during Modi’s chief ministerial days with Shah playing a crucial role exercising his chief’s proxy power handling the crucial
position of minister of state for Home(Modi himself kept the home portfolio).He
even went to jail to shield his boss.
Imagery apart ,Shah looked after Advani’s lok
sabha campaign in the earlier years . Thus
Shah knows the constituency like the back of his hand. Advani was the sitting MP from Gandhinagar from 1991 till 2019
barring couple of years between 1996 and 1998 . Under
Advani, it came to be known as the safest seat for the BJP, despite the fact
that it stretched from the state capital ,Gandhinagar through a flank of
Ahmedabad to its southern extremity .
The
seat originally belonged to later day BJP rebel Shankersinh Vaghela who had
gifted it to Advani personally assuring his election. That Advani cast his lot
with Modi when it came to choosing between the two is a different matter
altogether though it substantially
changed the course of Gujarat and Indian politics later, leading to his
own(Advani’s) marginalization!
It
was in the last lok sabha election of 2014
helmed by Modi which brought him to power at the Centre that BJP scored
a perfect 26 bagging all the seats from Gujarat.
In
the aftermath of Advani, despite the veteran having lost relevance after the rise of Modi , things will not be all that easy for the BJP
in Gujarat, more so in Gandhinagar
constituency . The party remained united
for Advani and the traditional rivalry between the Shah camp and that of former chief minister Anandiben Patel is bound to
surface again, more so since Shah is himself the candidate. In fact, Anandiben
Patel was in Ahmedabad for a week during the period that the state BJP set-up
was evaluating names of likely candidates from Gujarat.
Shah’s
candidature also makes it abundantly clear that despite the boast of bagging
all the 26 seats, the leadership is a worried lot. If the 2017 Assembly
elections are taken as the yardstick, the BJP trailed in 8 lok sabha seats. These
were Banaskantha, Sabarkantha, Patan and Mehsana in north Gujarat; Junagadh, Amreli
and Surendranagar in Saurashtra region and Anand in central Gujarat.
An
upbeat Congress, after the last Assembly elections, is determined to take the
battle into the rival camp. Rahul Gandhi started his election campaign from
Dharampur in South Gujarat-the venue successfully chosen by Indira Gandhi,
Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi for the return of the Congress to power. More
recently, it held the party’s CWC meet in Ahmedabad where Priyanka Gandhi made
her first political speech at a rally where Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti(PAAS)
leader Hardik Patel formally joined the
party.
This
is the sole reason that the ruling party weaned away six congress
legislators with cabinet rank to two of them and an MOS to another besides assorted inducements for the
remaining with an eye to gaining hold of caste vote banks. Despite all these, the support of the patidar vote bank
still continues to elude the BJP, Prime Minister’s own intervention
notwithstanding.
As
things stand 2019 is not 2014 and there has been an erosion in the BJP vote
bank with Congress making major gains in the 2017 State Assembly elections.
Shah’s boast of bagging 150 seats went abegging and the BJP was down to 99, its
lowest ever score after Modi took charge
in 2001 with the Congress taking it’s
tally to 77 in a total house of 182. Despite the spate of induced desertions from the Congress through
the lollipop of ministerial berths that has brought it’s tally down to 71, the
fact is that Congress is expected to
fare better than last time when it had touched rock bottom. This is also,
in fair measure, due to the internal dissensions within the BJP wherein loyal
leaders have been sidelined to reward
turncoats from the Congress with plum
posts. It is common knowledge that the
traditional Shah-Patel group rivalries
as well as those created by the
turncoats entry is expected to make
things lot tougher for Shah, though he may ultimately prevail.
In 2014
Advani had won the seat with a margin of 4,83,121 votes. That s a fairly
tall order for someone wanting to step into veteran Advani’s illustrious and
time-worn shoes !
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