After over two decades ruling Gujarat, BJP is getting an attack of nerves with just over a month to go for polling on December 9 and 14. How else do you account for Prime Minister Narendra Modi dangling a caramel coated carrot one moment and menacingly wielding the club, the very next?
Three days before elections were declared in Gujarat, on October 22, Modi was in the state, sweet as sugar enumerating the manifold benefits of having the same party government, both at the Centre and in the state to ensure speedy development. Modi was making a case for continuing with the BJP government in Gujarat where he was the chief minister from 2001 to 2014 before he left to take over as the prime minister. He reeled off names in support of his argument. Morarji Desai as Prime Minister and Babubhai Patel in Gujarat, Atal Behari Vajpayee in Delhi and Keshubhai Patel in the state and of course, he in Delhi and Vijay Rupani in his home state conveniently choosing to omit the long line of Congress chief ministers in Gujarat with the same party government at the Centre. Gujarat should take advantage of a sympathetic government at the Centre and leave no stone unturned to benefit from it, he said, pointing out the example of the Vajpayee government which helped Gujarat tide over the earthquake.
The same day speaking at a rally in Vadodara, Modi was clearly menacing when he said that the Centre would not spend a rupee in states where anti-development governments are installed. More often than not Modi, both as chief minister and as the prime minister has termed the Congress as anti-development and anti-Gujarat. Who elects governments? Quite obviously, the people, so who was the prime minister threatening with cutting off development funds if they voted the present opposition to power - the very people who had four times elected him to head the state. In fact, the importance of this statement goes beyond Gujarat to hold out a warning to people in states who vote non-BJP governments countrywide.
Irrespective of the outcome of the polls, the fact is that the ruling BJP - both at the Centre and in the state-is flustered. Modi ruled Gujarat with an iron hand but after his departure for Delhi in 2014, its tongue tied state leaders have been flexing their atrophied muscles to the detriment of the party. And this includes national BJP chief Amit Shah who may have worked wonders for the party countrywide, but his petty feuding with the then chief minister Anandiben Patel has left it shambled in Gujarat. Patel was a taciturn lady but Vijay Rupani is a greenhorn, lacklustre head who is seen as a poor proxy for Shah. In fact, Modi’s successors are quite simply lost in his outsized shoes.
Three of the most prickly thorns embedded in the ruling party’s flesh are all creation of the BJP’s internecine warfare. The Patidar agitation and its spearhead Hardik Patel was born out of the movement to shake down the invincible Anandiben, who was Modi’s handpicked and selected successor. Some blessed ambitious Patidar leaders within the BJP began the game but could not control its outcome. Alpesh Thakore, the OBC leader, received backing from present deputy chief minister Nitin Patel until he outgrew him and joined the Congress recently. Jignesh Mevani, the Dalit leader, was born out of July 11, 2016, Dalit youth’s lynching and the countrywide outrage that cost BJP its first lady Patidar chief minister. All three have remained immune to the ruling party’s affluential charms because it would be a kiss of death for their respective political careers. The opposition is thus their natural ally. The Congress stands to benefit from it. The communities that the three represent can influence the outcome in at least 100 of the total 182 Assembly constituencies in the state!
Nothing seems to have gone right for the BJP in post-Modi Gujarat. This is despite the rain of sops over the last three months and a publicity blitzkrieg at a huge cost to the public exchequer. “It has been drained dry and Gujarat is sitting on a mountain of public debt,” says a bureaucrat who would not want to be named for obvious reasons. When the BJP came to power in Gujarat in 1995, the public debt was Rs 10,000 crore which have now risen to Rs 1.82 lakh crore, an increase of Rs 18,647 crores over the previous year alone. It rose approximately three times in the first 10 years of Modi rule.
BJP’s poll forays in the public domain have received a very lukewarm response. The statewide Narmada yatra, a ploy to hog credit for the Narmada dam came to a cropper and was shooed away from some of the Patidar dominated villages. Gaurav yatra, a hark back to Modi’s statewide yatra after the Godhra train carnage and the statewide communal riots in 2002 received an equally insipid welcome when re-invented in its new avatar with the old name recently.
In stark contrast, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi has been receiving an enthusiastic welcome in the state. He has been raising issues of farmers’ suicides, rising unemployment and the sheer arrogance in the power of Modi, which has been striking a raw nerve amongst the voters. Even the leader, this time, it is Modi who is trailing the Congress vice-president. Rahul began a 3-day Saurashtra campaign from Dwarka. So did Modi days later. Rahul climbed to the Chotila temple to pay obeisance, Modi held a public meeting in the temple town soon after.
In the social media too, the hunter has turned the hunted with the hugely viral ‘vikas gando thayo chhe’ (development has gone insane) and ‘mara beta chettri gaya’ (bloody hell, cheated us) taking the social media platforms by storm. Once the domain of the BJP under Modi, the party is fumbling and at a loss, matching paces. Realising the steep drop in popularity, the prime minister has in the last six months increased the frequency of his visits to his home state i.e. five in as many weeks and ninth this year.
According to party sources, he is slated to address 50 to 70 public meetings during the remaining six weeks of electioneering in the state making it clear that he will lead from the front and the BJP will fight the Gujarat elections in his name. It has little else to show except Modi!
