Battle royale in Gujarat: Stakes high for Congress and BJP

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

After Himachal Pradesh, the battlefield has now shifted to Gujarat, making it a do or die election for both Congress and the BJP. After practically giving a walkover to BJP for almost four years and ten months, Congress is striving hard in the last few meters of the marathon to touch the tape before its rival.

I will tell you why Gujarat is important for both the parties. If BJP loses the state, it practically loses any hope it has been nursing all these months and years to come to power at the Centre in the 2014 elections for the Lok Sabha. It is so crucial for BJP. Again, for the Congress, a victory would practically ensure third consecutive term for the UPA. If Congress manages to snatch Gujarat from the firm grip of the BJP, it would send a powerful political message to the entire country and the party would be assured that the momentum in indeed in its favour.

Congress can still wriggle out of the situation, even if it loses the polls insisting that the voters are polarized. It can always invent one or more reasons for its defeat. But for the BJP, there cannot be any excuse and there is no scope for any margin of error. It has to win the polls come what may or lose its relevance ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

The pre poll surveys have predicted a comfortable victory for BJP without giving even a semblance of hope for the Congress. But we all know that a lot of pre poll surveys and even the exit polls have been off the mark in several elections and at best these could be broad indicators of the public opinion, something on which none of the parties can bank on.

If you ask anyone, when Congress was in power in Gujarat the last time, people will have to scratch their brains to find the answer. It was way back in the mid 1990s. As the country and obviously Gujarat saw dismantling of the Inspector Raj, license-quota regime and economic liberalization, BJP came to power in the state and ever since it has retained its hold. This period coincided with tremendous boost to Gujarat economy. The state reaped maximum benefits of economic liberalization and somehow the people of the state associate the BJP with the progress the state has made since 1995 when BJP first came to power. Remember, making money and being proud of it is a serious business in Gujarat. Those who are already in the big league and thousands and lakhs of others who are trying to be there, have developed a notion that BJP would help their efforts. 

Then came the cocktail of economic prosperity and rising aspiration in globalised economy with religious polarization post Godhra. BJP has been winning rather impressively all these years post the riots. In the 2007 elections, the maut ke saudagar statement of Congress President Sonia Gandhi polarized the voters once again and Narendra Modi won without even trying to polarize the voters. But this time, Congress has been extremely careful not to raise any issue or give statements which polarize the voters again on communal lines and benefit BJP. With two weeks to go for the polls, the issues are economic prosperity or the lack of it rather than sentimental ones. This is precisely the issue on which elections should be fought along with the agenda and plan of the respective contestants for the next five years.

For the Congress, the proposed move of direct cash transfer to the beneficiaries would be put to electoral test for the first time. Last time, Congress successfully sold NAREGA and loan waiver to the farmers in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. In 2014, its trump card could well be direct cash transfer. Though Gujarat is prosperous and the number of BPL families are quite less as compared to other parts of the country, but the voting pattern in the poorer areas and also the urban slums would definitely indicate whether the issue has clicked with the voters or not.

But nationally, there are too many things going against the Congress. Voter fatigue, born out of anti-incumbency of two terms, series of allegations dogging the UPA II, beginning from Commonwealth Games and continuing since then with the latest being the Coalgate and a lot of issues which could be enumerated later in details. These national issues too would have a bearing on Gujarat polls.

Narendra Modi too faces voter fatigue and anti-incumbency like the Congress faces in the Centre. But the problem is that the Congress has failed to project anyone as a counter to Modi’s larger than life persona.

So when Modi wanted Congress to declare its chief ministerial candidate and propped up the name of Ahmed Patel, the reclusive but all powerful Political Secretary to the Congress President, he played to his strength. In the battle of personalities, there is no one in front of Modi – the PCC chief of the state Arjun Modhwadia or the CLP leader Shaktisinh Govil do not have the kind of persona it requires to take him on in the battle of personalities. It is here that Ahmed Patel fits the bill.

He may not be in the limelight and avoids the media but everyone in Gujarat knows that Patel is practically the Number 4 in Congress after the Congress President, her son and General Secretary Rahul Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. If he is indeed projected as the chief ministerial candidate of the party against Modi, it would help the party’s cause as the people of the state would readily believe that Patel can get anything from the central government for the state.

He could be a match for Modi. But then, Patel has all the powers in the party hierarchy which a leader would aspire for and why would he risk all that for the post of chief minister which in any case is extremely difficult to come by. A section of the Congress believe that perhaps Modi wants to again polarize the voters by propping Patel’s name as he happens to be from the minority community and Congress won’t play ball.

But whatever the political maneuvering before the polls, what is certain is that a defeat for BJP would be curtains for it as far as immediate national ambitions are concerned while a defeat for the Congress wouldn’t really point to the things shaping up in the run-up to 2014. (December 3, 2012) 

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