Litmus Test For Opposition Unity In Gujarat
BY R.K.MISRA
‘Symbols are visible signs of invisible
realities’ is an old saying.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day
visit to Gujarat beginning August 27 as usual hogged front-page headlines. But the
day after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi addressed 50,000 booth-level workers,
the newspapers dutifully blacked out the event from their front pages. Editor
of a news portal sarcastically tweeted images of the front pages and wondered
at the editorial judgment.
The Prime Minister of course likes inaugurating
statues, pathways, sea planes, catamarans, upgradation of the Sabarmati
riverfront etc. So, there were no surprises when he inaugurated a footbridge.
A prominent national daily carried on its front
page the photograph of the Prime Minister manfully striding down the colourfully
crested footbridge named after former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on
the Sabarmati riverfront in Ahmedabad. Right next to the photograph was a five
column, tell-tale story of a tribal woman’s 9-year struggle for her husband’s
death certificate, an issue which is now before the High Court.
Three days later the same newspaper carried
another report informing people that the footbridge will be accessible to only those
who pay Rs 30 and that the ticket will be valid for the next 30 minutes.
Children and senior citizens would have to pay half the free while people with
disabilities may access it free.
The footbridge cost the tax-payers Rs 74
crores. The irony is that if you take an auto-rickshaw to cross any of the
bridges across the river, it charges Rs 5 per passenger. So, you pay six times
more to have the pleasure and convenience of walking across the Atal
footbridge.
Tucked into the same page was news that
cybercrime cases in the state were up by 235 per cent in the last five years
with economic offences going up from 4.5 per lakh of population in 2020 to
5.7 in 2021.
This and record drug hauls sum up the state of
the ‘model state’ where a Rajkot journalist is booked for a report that claimed
that ouster of the Gujarat chief minister Bhupendra Patel was
imminent. The speculative report was not
entirely without basis. Two ministers had been abruptly divested of key portfolios
and Bhupendra Patel himself was installed unexpectedly by ousting Vijay Rupani.
The dissatisfaction with the state government
has been high and the Gujarat High Court had to step in forcefully to get
cattle off the roads in Ahmedabad, after BJP leader and former deputy
chief minister, Nitin Patel landed in hospital after being hit by a cow or a
bull during the party’s ‘tiranga yatra’.
The cattle menace on city roads in
Gujarat has been a major issue. The High Court in 2017 warned of stern
action in the matter. The state BJP president, C.R.Patil, had assured of necessary
action. The State Assembly on April 1 this year passed a Bill seeking to
regulate stray cattle menace in urban areas of the eight municipal corporations
and 162 towns.
The ‘maldhari’ community or cattle rearers were
however up in arms and threatened to ‘boycott BJP’ in the impending assembly
elections. Barely a week after the Bill was passed, on
April 8, the implementation of the Bill was put
on hold. It was only after a tongue lashing from the High Court on August 30 that
the Ahmedabad civic body was forced to act. It surprised
nobody in the state, long used to policies and
decisions tailored for elections.
As Gujarat moves into the pre-poll phase
of the 2022 assembly elections due in December this year, a triangular contest appears
a certainty with the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Admi Party (AAP) throwing its hat
in the ring. Gujarat till now has been an electoral battleground between
traditional rivals Congress and the BJP. Both will be wary about the
high-voltage, high-publicity campaign launched by AAP.
Traditionally, regional outfits in Gujarat have
not done well. From former chief minister and Congress leader Chimanbhai Patel’s
Kisan Mazdoor Lok Paksha (KMLP) to BJP rebel Shankersinh Vaghela’s Rashtriya
Janata Dal and veteran Gujarat BJP leader Keshubhai Patel’s Gujarat Parivartan Party-
none of them has DONE well in elections. Can AAP reverse the trend is the
question.
Knowledgeable sources maintain that
Arvind Kejriwal’s original strategy was to utilise the assembly elections in
Gujarat to build the party’s organisational structure in the state while
actually concentrating on Himachal Pradesh which goes to the polls alongside
Gujarat. Firmly in the saddle in Delhi and with the bonus of having bagged
Punjab, it wanted Himachal in its kitty before concentrating on
Haryana and build AAP’s presence in a contiguous land mass in preparation
to emerge as an important player in the 2024 parliamentary sweepstakes.
However, it was forced into a strategic
shift when the Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain, who was overseeing the HP
poll planning for the party, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate and
BJP activists stormed the residence of chief minister Kejriwal. RSS “B” team or
not, AAP could no longer avoid a direct and electoral confrontation with the
BJP which appeared to be going for its jugular after AAP’s Punjab victory. It
therefore decided to beard the BJP in its own den, Gujarat and Kejriwal arrived
with all guns blazing.
It was in part bolstered by the Surat municipal
corporation results where AAP bagged 27 seats to the BJP’s 93 in a 120-member
civic body. Congress was the loser. However, in the Gandhinagar Municipal
Corporation elections, AAP could manage only one seat but managed to drag the
Congress down. While BJP bagged 41 of the total 44 seats, reducing the opposition
to just three, the combined Congress-AAP vote share was higher than the votes
of the BJP.
This is a warning sign that the two parties
need to heed. Working together, the two parties possess the firepower to take on
the BJP and Narendra Modi on his home ground. But divided and at loggerheads
with each other, they will be picked up separately and strung out to dry.
The Congress for the most part, has been
an ethical opponent, but AAP is not bogged down by any such considerations as
it takes on Modi on his home turf. After CBI raids on Delhi deputy chief
minister Manish Sisodia, AAP’s aggression in Gujarat has increased. While Rahul
Gandhi has decided to by-pass the poll-bound states of Gujarat and
Himachal Pradesh in his Bharat-Jodo campaign in an effort to keep the Yatra
non-partisan, neither Modi, who had embarked on a ‘Gujarat Gaurav’ Yatra after
the 2002 communal riots, nor Kejriwal are likely to stop at anything for
electoral gains.
AAP is also using the Gujarat elections to
build the national profile of Kejriwal as the answer to Narendra Modi in 2024. This
profiling has picked up speed ever since Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar
made strategic adjustments by doing a Maharashtra on Modi in Bihar.
Modi remains formidable and is a tough
nut to crack in Gujarat but he and the BJP are far from invincible; provided
the two main opponents taking him on in Gujarat join hands rather than look for
a win in a triangular contest, which benefits only the BJP.
Comments
Post a Comment