Gujarat : Powder Keg Politics Ensures Ground Turbulence

 

BY R.K.MISRA

Powder keg politics invariably leads to ground turbulence.

 Hitherto the exclusive domain of the ruling BJP, the Aam Admi Party’s (AAP)entry into the Gujarat election arena gives notice of a  season of heightened aggression as the new challenger and the old one brace to beard the lion in its own den.

Gujarat has largely been a straight contest between traditional rivals BJP and the Congress though regional parties including AAP have unsuccessfully tested the electoral waters since the inception of the state in 1960.

Aggressive ground domination has been the hallmark of both BJP conduct and campaigning ,  more so  after Narendra Modi took charge in 2001. This strategy received its first setback  a year after Modi’s departure for Delhi in 2014 when restive youth wrested the initiative through the Hardik Patel headed Patidar agitation ,Alpesh Thakore shepherded OBC movement, and the Jignesh Mevani led dalit stir. All three helped Congress to within winning distance in the 2017 polls  before the effort faltered short of breasting the tape and the BJP heaved a sigh of relief with an eight seat victory in a House of 182 seats. In the thereafter, Alpesh switched to the BJP just before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and Hardik made Gujarat Congress working president, has blotted his copybook with his trademark dithering(he has since quit), pitchforking Mevani to key player status in Congress election plans, aided in no small measure  by his arrest and incarceration in Assam.

The Kejriwal led outfit’s debut in the 2017 Assembly elections was a disaster losing all the 30 seats it contested and  security deposits in bulk of them. The highest it’s candidate polled was 4500 votes in Chotta Udaipur with the saving grace that it helped a Congress veteran, Mohansinh Rathwa win the seat by a 1000 votes. It’s internal assessment made AAP concentrate on ten seats with chances of winning but in vain. AAP’s Gujarat poll strategist Sandeep Pathak has given his  party 58 seats this time if elections are held right away and claims  that the Intelligence Bureau’s estimate  stand in close vicinity.

Buoyed  by the Punjab election results where it swept to power displacing the Congress, AAP has upped the ante in Gujarat this time. matching  favourites  BJP, lob for volley and drop shot to smash hit in terms of aggression.

BJP volunteers may enjoy the backing of the formidable government machinery, but AAP workers, who are a youth force, make up with gusto and spirit for what they lack in terms of resources. There have been frequent clashes every time AAP organized demonstrations at the BJP state headquarters in Gandhinagar last December over leaked examination papers of government recruitment examinations or over brutalization of their protesting councillors including women in Surat this month. With the cop intervening on the side of the rulers, AAP volunteers are being arrested on a variety of charges but their activism is getting them popular approval for taking up people’s pinching  issues.

That the shoe is beginning to pinch became clear when Gujarat BJP president, C.R.Paatil speaking at a party function in Surat on May 7, termed Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal “not only a thug but a big thug who was now offering freebies to get people to vote his party”. Though he did not name him, the inference became clear in subsequent references when he termed him a ‘khalistanwadi’. Interestingly it was in Paatil’s Surat that AAP made its first major impact in Gujarat bagging 27 seats in the Surat Municipal Corporation elections in February last year. However  it could manage only one seat even as  it cornered 21 per cent of the votes  in the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation elections  eight months later.

Though the AAP has been fiercely locking horns with the ruling BJP in Gujarat, both its urban local self-government body election achievements have been at the cost of the Congress. In Surat BJP bagged 93 seats, AAP 27 and the Congress drew a blank in the 120 member body. In the state capital’s civic body where Congress ,in the past, either had the upper hand or drew level ,  the BJP induced defections to come to power. This time the tide turned. BJP bagged 41 of the total 44 seats, the Congress 2 and AAP one. However the combined vote percentage of  Congress 27.97 and  AAP 21.3  is higher than the BJP’s 46.49 per cent.

The twist in the tail is that  urban areas of Gujarat are considered impregnable fortresses of the BJP, with the Congress stronger in the rural areas.  Therefore all  the AAP inroads in urban agglomerations is  likely to be at the cost of the BJP.  Municipal Corporations in the key cities of Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Rajkot, Surat  Bhavnagar, Jamnagar and Junagadh are all BJP controlled.

The tribal areas of Gujarat , which  flank  Rajasthan, MP and Maharashtra, have been the traditional preserve of the Congress but it has faced erosion progressively over the last two elections. The state has a 14.8 per cent  tribal population and accounts for  27 Scheduled Tribe(ST) reserved seats. All three parties are eying these seats. The BJP would like to make up any likely urban shortfall from here and , in keeping with it’s policy of  picking readymade goods off the shelf, has  poached three term Congress MLA from Khedbrahma in tribal  Sabarkantha district, Ashwin Kotwal within the last week.

Prime Minister Modi announced a flurry of development projects in Dahod at an Adijati Mahasammelan recently while Kejriwal  announced a tie-up  with the Bharat tribal Party (BTP) of Chottu Vasava on May 1. Meanwhile Rahul Gandhi attended a major tribal event in Dahod on May 10 while the BJP, not to be outdone, held a three day convention  of all tribal MPs of the party at the Statue of Unity(SAU) around the same time.

Nevertheless Congress leaders who tend to term  AAP as the ‘B” team of the RSS put forward the argument that they are most active in states where  their party(Congress) is either in power or strong contenders as the leading Opposition. They cite, Punjab and Goa where AAP strained every nerve and  Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka  which has been marked out for special attention , while questioning it’s virtual absence in Uttar Pradesh in the just concluded polls. “If  Kejriwal thinks that by wresting one state he has developed the muscle to take on Modi, he is living in a fools paradise. In fact he is weakening the forces that are working to take on Modi in  the 2024 Lok Sabha polls thus confirming  our suspicion that AAP is the “B” team of the RSS tasked with apportioning Opposition space to itself at the cost of the Congress”, a veteran Congress leader points out.

Indirect affirmation comes from a former BJP veteran of similar standing who is very clear that  2024 is the last chance for the combined opposition which includes Opposition ruled states like Maharashtra, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala and those that go to polls later this year and next year to put their selfish interests behind and come together. If Modi returns to power again, the face of the Constitution and it’s federal structure will be unrecognizable and  the dissenting states will be picked up like cherry droppings, he predicts.

(https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/gujarat-powder-keg-politics-ensures-ground-turbulence-1107643.html )