BJP may trounce Cong in Guj; rebel trouble for both in HP

The battle lines have been drawn for a fierce electoral battle between the BJP and the Congress in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. Though the AAP is trying to make inroads into Gujarat, it still has a long way to go and if the present situation is any indication, it may at the most cut into Congress votes and win a few seats.

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, who is basking under the glory of his party's victory in Punjab, feels that showcasing of the schemes he has implemented in Delhi and some additional promises laced with sharp criticism of BJP will help AAP make a grand entry in Gujarat and emerge as a force to be reckoned with. With his entry, of course, the state will witness a triangular contest. AAP wants to make use of the recent raids by ED, CBI and the campaign that the Modi-led government is trying to buy 40 of his MLAs to topple his government. But, Gujarat being what it is, such emotional campaign will not cut much ice with the voters.

The BJP which is of the firm opinion that the Congress this time will not be able to give the kind of fight it had given during the last elections seems to be of the view that AAP should not be taken lightly more so because the Assembly elections would come just ahead of General Elections which, de facto, turns the poll battle into a semi-final before the Lok Sabha polls.

The 2022 Gujarat poll battle will be a high-octane one and is set to offer thrilling and exciting moments. This battle is going to be entirely different from what the Gujarat had seen in 2017. Between 2017 and 2022 many political changes and developments have taken place. There are two factors that need to be looked at. One, Gujaratis are basically best business-minded people. For them, what matters most is the growth in industry and business opportunities in the state. The way Modi has been attracting manufacturing units, or shall we say taking them away, to Gujarat will have impact on the minds of the business community. But on the flip side, BJP has not been able to produce a leader of Modi's stature or talent to lead the polls. Even eight years after Modi became the Prime Minister, still the state BJP is heavily dependent on Modi-Amit Shah duo to bring the saffron party to power in Gujarat. He is the only most important face of the party in Gujarat.

Other factors that make the poll battle different from 2017 elections are changes that have taken place politically. At that time, the BJP had to face a major challenge from three young activists – Patel, Thakor and Mevani. These three people had become the centre of political battle. They had taken a strong anti-BJP line and this gave a new hope for the Congress party which came close to wresting power from BJP. Hardik Patel became a protagonist for Patidar movement and sent chills down the spine of BJP. Alpesh Thakor hogged the lime light as he had strong support from large segments of other backward classes in the state. Mevani represented Dalit voice and enjoyed the support from pro-Dalit sections.

Five years down the line, Hardik Patel and Thakor are now with the BJP. Mevani has joined the Congress but he has landed in trouble now as he was sentenced to six months in jail for organising protests in 2016 to rename Gujarati University Law Bhavan as B R Ambedkar Bhavan. The patidar issue has now been forgotten.

The Congress had won Morbi assembly seat because of Patidar agitation last time. Morbi has a significant number of Patidar voters. This helped Brijesh Merja to win over BJP's five term winner Kanti Amrutiya with bare 3,419 votes. But then Brijesh marched over to the BJP camp, resigned his seat and got re-elected in by poll as candidate of the saffron party. The benefit he got from this migration and victory in by poll was that he was made the Minister of State for Panchayat, labour, Skill Development, Rural Housing and Rural Development. He was the one who has been in the forefront of rescue operation and one of the first to reach the site of accident when Morbi hanging bridge collapsed recently claiming about 140 lives.

The Congress, however, is harping on the tragic incident to turn the situation in their favour. The party leaders exude confidence that Morbi developments will swing the balance in their favour. The Congress would be going hammer and tongs at the BJP government and will hold it responsible for the total mismanagement of things and will charge that the corrupt government had given contract to people who had no experience in bridge maintenance and it is they who are responsible for killing 140 people. They have already started the campaign saying that Modi bhai was talking about making defence equipment, but the government run by his own party could not maintain and carry out repairs of a bridge properly. The BJP stands exposed and it is now clear that all its claims are hollow.

The interesting part in Gujarat polls is that the Patel community always plays a decisive role in elections. That is why all political parties want to woo them as much as they can. They are the key community for any party if it were to come to power. In the last elections, Hardik Patel turned the tide and received huge support from Patels. But now that kind of charisma of Hardik Patel is not to be seen in the community. But, the plus point for him is that he has joined BJP. The advantage for BJP is that the Chief Minister Bhupendrabhai Patel, too, is from this formidable Community. This could be a disadvantage for the congress party.

Another difference between the last elections and 2022 is that at that time Rahul Gandhi had campaigned vigorously in Gujarat with the slogan of "Chowkidar Chor Hair and Gabbar Singh GST." It certainly did cause some dent in the BJP vote bank. But now Rahul is busy with his Bharat Jodo Yatra. This could become Congress todo in Gujarat. Rahul is covering 12 states and will reach Kashmir after 150 days of walkathon which began from Kanyakumari. Interestingly, Gujarat is not in his itinerary.

Though BJP is yet to take a final decision on the chief ministerial face and it remains to be seen if it would fall back on Bhupendrabhai or some other face. Anandiben Patel and Vijay Rupani could not prove to be very effective in the state. Comparatively, Bhupendrabhai has shown his administrative capabilities.

If we take a look at the situation in Himachal, both the parties BJP and Congress face threat from rebels who can upset the apple cart in over 15 of the 68 Assembly constituencies. There are a total of 413 candidates in the fray after 92 candidates withdrew their nomination papers. As many as 45 nominations were rejected. Leaders of the grand old party Congress and the saffron party have been on their toes to persuade the rebels keeping the larger interest of the party. These parties want those who failed to withdraw to retire from the contest in the larger interests of the party and are being given certain promises.

The BJP after a lot of persuasion succeeded in convincing a former MP Maheshwar Singh to withdraw as an Independent candidate. He was considered to be a potential candidate who could cause major trouble for the party in the Kullu (Sadar) and Banjar Assembly seats, while the Congress persuaded former minister Kuldeep Kumar from Chintpurni and MLAs Biru Ram Kishore (Jhandutta) and Tilak Raj (Bilaspur) to withdraw their nominations.

Major Congress rebels contesting the elections include former minister Gangu Ram Musafir from Pachhad, former MLA Subhash Manglet from Chopal and former MLA Jagjivan Pal from Sullah. The fight here is going to be a real tough one as Congress cannot be written off easily in Himachal Pradesh.