The poll result will not just decide Gujarat’s CM. It will also crystallise who will be PM Modi’s challenger in 2024. Don’t be surprised if many poll experts do a double-take on December 8.
In 1985, the Congress returned to power in Gujarat. But it was no ordinary victory. The party won a record 149 of the total 182 seats in the state assembly. Its vote percentage was over 55 per cent, a high that even the BJP is yet to touch. However, much was to start changing soon.
1985 was also the year when Ahmedabad, capital Gandhinagar and some other places in the state faced prolonged rioting over the government’s reservation policy to benefit the backward classes. But it also morphed into communal violence. More than 200 people were killed, thousands injured and tens of thousands displaced. Meanwhile, the BJP’s influence was growing in Gujarat.
BJP WINS GUJARAT
In the 1990 polls, the Congress tally dropped to a mere 33. Like in some other states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the Janata Dal was a new political force in Gujarat, with 70 seats. It formed the government with the BJP (67). Janata Dal’s Chimanbhai Patel was the chief minister and BJP’s Keshubhai Patel became his deputy.
In the same year, however, Chimanbhai Patel broke the alliance but remained on the post with help from Congress MLAs and even joined the grand old party, in a development similar to what happened in Maharashtra more recently. When Chimanbhai Patel died in 1994, Chhabildas Mehta of the Congress was sworn in as the chief minister.
In the next election, in 1995, Keshubhai Patel became the chief minister as the BJP highlighted the betrayal and its numbers soared to 121. The Congress improved its abysmal show but only marginally. Though with slightly fewer seats, Keshubhai Patel returned to office in 1998. The Congress was still in the 50s.
MODI TAKES CHARGE
In 2001, not only scenes or acts but the script itself was changing. Keshubhai Patel got unwell and was becoming unpopular, especially after his government's response to the Bhuj earthquake. The BJP lost some state bypolls. Narendra Modi was sent to Gujarat from Delhi to take over.
Next year, the Godhra train burning and Gujarat riots took place. This was one of the worst communal violence in India in which 1,044 people, including 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus, were killed, according to official estimates. Rapes and looting and destruction of property—burning of homes and shops—were reported. About two lakh people were displaced. Many of them could not go back to their homes and resettled in new neighbourhoods.
Under criticism, CM Modi called for fresh polls, eight months before his term was to expire. The BJP won an absolute majority. The Congress got only 51 seats.
MODI IN DELHI
Nothing much changed in the two following elections, even as riots, though on a smaller scale, remained a feature of Gujarat’s socio-political landscape.
In 2014, Narendra Modi became prime minister and his personal charisma, woven around Hindutva, which first came to the fore in 2002, won the BJP state after state. Gujarat had become the BJP’s election cradle. Not many people remember the names of chief ministers after Narendra Modi left Gujarat for Delhi, even as the BJP won the state again in 2017.
WHO WILL WIN NOW?
Now, Gujarat is again going to the polls, in the first week of December. It’s a high-stakes battle, not only because it’s PM Modi’s home state but his closest associate, Union home minister Amit Shah, also comes from there.
In the last 27 years, since 1995, the BJP has been in power in the state. But the crisis for the Congress is much deeper. Even between 1990 and 1995, the public mandate was not for the Congress. It was for the BJP-Janata Dal coalition. Today, the Congress is facing an existential crisis, triggered by election losses, exits of some top leaders and dissent within the party.
Against such a backdrop, one might be tempted to say the BJP is once again going to defeat the Congress whose leader Rahul Gandhi has been criticised for not including Gujarat in his ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, in what many called a walkover. This is what may happen but elections are not as simple as they seem.
CONGRESS DOWN BUT NOT OUT
In the six elections between 1995 and 2017, the BJP’s vote share has been mostly in the high forties. But the Congress has not been far behind either. It’s been in the thirties and high thirties, breaching the 40-mark during the last polls.
It was an election in which Rahul Gandhi led a spirited campaign. The Congress lost but its tally was the best since 1985. The BJP won but its total dropped into double digits for the first time in over two decades. “The last election was tighter than it may have appeared to some. In the end, Surat came to the BJP’s rescue after PM Modi stepped up campaigning,” senior political journalist Iftikhar Gilani told IndiaToday.in
From 1995, the BJP-Congress gap kept widening but it has narrowed in the last two polls, 2012 and 2017. Notably, Narendra Modi hasn’t been Gujarat’s CM since 2014.
URBAN-RURAL SPLIT
And it’s incorrect that the Congress is a weak party in the whole of Gujarat. The rural belt has been its stronghold. Here, the party won more seats than the BJP in the 2017 polls. Here, the Congress’s tally went up from 57 to 71. The BJP’s drop was from 77 to 63. What is true is that the BJP has been formidable in cities, taking most of the 42 urban seats election after election.
But this is where things start getting more and more interesting. The AAP is the third party in the fray this election. The AAP is primarily a city-centric party. It’s easier for its leader Arvind Kejriwal to land in Ahmedabad, Surat and other cities and campaign where a substantial media spotlight is on him and return to Delhi.
This has a background. In the 2021 Surat municipal election, the AAP replaced the Congress as the opposition party. Arvind Kejriwal’s party greatly damaged the Congress even in Gandhinagar. This leads to a common perception that the AAP will cut into Congress votes and end up helping the BJP. But elections are a complex exercise.
THE AAP FACTOR
Dismissing the AAP as a mere Congress vote-cutter could be a folly. Arvind Kejriwal’s party might get some Congress votes in urban areas but we shouldn’t forget the grand old party isn’t too invested there anyway.
Urban centres are not where the Congress is placing its highest bets. Here, the stakes couldn’t be higher for the BJP because it has more to lose.
Theoretically, the possibility of the AAP also denting the BJP in its urban stronghold cannot be ruled out. And the saffron party is well aware of this proposition. In fact, the Congress could also benefit in some cities due to a likely division of BJP votes. Opinion polls have also suggested that the APP is making inroads into urban areas.
If this happens, the Congress’s show, when maintained or improved, in villages could appear more game-changing and even end the party’s electoral drought, who knows!
Remember, the AAP and the Congress have together run, for 49 days, a government in Delhi in 2014, even though Arvind Kejriwal now misses no opportunity to call Rahul Gandhi and his party a spent force. What we should remember in politics there are no permanent friends or enemies.
That aside, a good Congress show can trigger talk of a Congress revival, sumptuously attributed to Rahul Gandhi’s ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra. Many would ask: if not in this election, then when?
CHALLENGES FOR CONGRESS
After all, the BJP has been in power for 27 years. The party has the challenge of voter fatigue, if not outright unpopularity. If this doesn’t happen, well, the Congress's response will be: Rahul Gandhi didn’t campaign in Gujarat. Mallikarjun Kharge, first non-Gandhi Congress president in 24 years, will most likely be the fall guy.
“For the Congress, the challenges are many. Its master strategist Ahmed Patel is no more. His backroom operations had helped the party give a tough fight to the BJP last time around. Hardik Patel has gone to the BJP. Also, Gujarat has the most sophisticated behind-the-scenes RSS network, which is a great advantage to the BJP,” Gilani said.
AAP GAMEPLAN
On the other hand, the AAP perhaps knows it cannot win Gujarat. No party can win a state of this kind without a significantly good performance in the hinterland. But even a good show in urban pockets can bolster Arvind Kejriwal’s projection that he is, having taken Delhi and Punjab but with zero Lok Sabha MPs, an alternative to PM Modi in 2024 when India votes to choose its new government.
The freebie war is specifically aimed at drawing in urban voters. But the challenge for the AAP is different. Unlike in Delhi and Punjab, it’s not fighting a Congress facing deep anti-incumbency sentiments. No matter how much Hindutva posturing from Arvind Kejriwal, the AAP is facing a BJP for whom winning is everything.
The AAP still doesn’t have a strong organisation across Gujarat’s vast rural swathes where the Congress has been doing well and doesn't seem to have a new challenger.
LARGER PICTURE
Even in this election, the grand old party is working silently but resolutely in villages, multiple reports from the ground have suggested. But then the BJP swept Gujarat’s rural polls and won most municipal elections last year. Will this change poll equations? Time will tell.
What is clear as of now is that PM Modi remains a popular leader and no other party has a match for him. It’s also clear that the Gujarat election is the best bet for the Congress’s revival and the AAP’s expansion.
The December 8 result will not just decide the state’s chief minister. It will also crystallise who PM Modi’s challenger in 2024 will be. Don’t be surprised if election experts are seen doing a double take.