Gujarat Elections | BJP uses familiar template to beat anti-incumbency

After the scare of 2017 when the Congress nearly snatched victory from its jaws, the BJP is not taking any chances in the upcoming elections.

Gujarat has witnessed a bipolar contest between the Congress and the BJP for decades, but the emergence of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has changed the political and electoral landscape making it a triangular fight this time.

One of the worrying factors for the ruling party is that there has been a consistent downslide in its numbers since 2002. While it won 127 seats in the 2002 assembly elections, the figure came down to 117 in 2007, and subsequently to 115 seats in the 2012 polls. For the first time since 1995, the ruling party was restricted to below the 100-mark in 2017 when it bagged 99 seats.

A further dip will have serious consequences for the BJP in Gujarat, where a political party needs 92 seats to form the government.

The saffron party is working on multiple fronts to counter the fatigue factor and ensure that the young voters do not shift their allegiance to other parties, especially AAP that is urging the people to vote for change.

Fresh from its stunning victory in Punjab, AAP, led by its convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, has been aggressively campaigning in Gujarat.

It has succeeded in getting considerable traction among different groups due to its welfare guarantees, including free electricity up to 300 units per month, Rs 3,000 per month to the jobless, and Rs 1,000 per month to women above 18 years.

AAP has been able to project itself as the BJP’s main challenger, and sprinted past the Congress as far as electioneering is concerned. On November 4, Kejriwal declared former journalist Isudhan Gadhvi (40) as AAP’s chief ministerial candidate.

Having led the party’s campaign from the front in 2017, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi is virtually missing in action in Gujarat in these elections as he is busy with his ongoing nationwide Bharat Jodo Yatra. A listless and visibly weak Congress is feeling the impact of his absence in its campaigning.

AAP’s advent has perceptibly unnerved the BJP. The Prime Minister and Home Minister Amit Shah have made several trips to their home state in the past few weeks to assess the ground situation, and boost the party’s campaign.

As part of its strategy, the BJP has given tickets to several fresh faces, including Indian cricketer Ravindrasinh Jadeja’s wife Rivaba Jadeja from Jamnagar North, and former Congress leader Hardik Patel from Viramgam.

Patel quit the Congress in May, and a month later joined the BJP. He had spearheaded the Patidar reservation agitation in Gujarat in 2015. Along with Hardik Patel, the BJP has fielded several Congress turncoats in the upcoming elections.

Among those denied tickets are outgoing assembly speaker Nimaben Acharya, and five ministers, including Pradip Parmar and Rajendra Trivedi.

Surprisingly a day before the party’s top leaders met in Delhi to finalise the list, several veterans wrote to Gujarat BJP chief CR Patil, expressing their unwillingness to contest the elections.

These include former Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, former Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel apart from former ministers Bhupendrasinh Chudasama, Pradipsinh Jadeja, Kaushik Patel, Saurabh Patel, Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, Vasan Ahir, and RC Faldu.

The party also dropped its sitting legislator from Morbi, where a bridge collapsed, killing over 140 people on October 29. Instead of its minister Brijesh Merja, the BJP gave a ticket to former legislator Kanti Amrutiya, who had jumped into the Machchu River to save many lives when the suspension bridge collapsed.

Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel will contest from Ghatlodia while Home Minister Harsh Sanghavi is seeking re-election from the Majura constituency.

That said, it remains to be seen if a fierce triangular contest will upset the BJP’s calculations this time, or actually help it gain a sixth consecutive term in Gujarat.