DR. FATIMA TANVEER dwells in detail upon why Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi is in deep trouble in run up to December 2012 Assembly elections in the State and concludes that his party is likely to receive the drubbings therein.
Even though the RSS has thrown its weight around Chief Minister Narendra Modi and is projecting him as BJP’s prime ministerial candidate in 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Hindutva posterboy carrying the stigma of 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom is facing severe challenges in the run up to the assembly elections to be held in December this year.
And the major challenges coming to him are from none other than BJP leaders themselves. BJP leaders, who are not happy with Modi’s style of functioning and have been sidelined by him, are openly challenging the leadership of this longest serving chief minister of this Western Indian state.
The bugle of revolt against Modi has been blown by 84-year-old Keshubhai Patel who has served the state as chief minister twice. The veteran BJP leader with strong RSS roots is backed in his campaign to unseat Modi from power by other Modi-baiters like former Chief Minister Suresh Mehta and former BJP MPs Kanshiram Rana, Dr. A K Patel and Dr. K D Jeswani.
Patel had opposed Modi even on the eve of 2007 assembly elections but withdrew after pressure from RSS. But this time around, the veteran Patel leader has openly declared that nothing could stop him from his way to seek political decimation of Modi. From various public fora in the last two months, he has been appealing to the people to remove Modi from power in the state as he said that “people of all communities in Gujarat are living in a shadow of fear ever since Modi came to power in October 2001’’.
Without naming Modi, he describes Modi as “Adolf Hitler of Gujarat’’, suggesting that CM is not tolerating the difference of opinion and killed the political careers of those who opposed him in the last 10 years.
Patel also recently called on senior party leaders like L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Murli Manohar Joshi and Rajnath Singh, seeking the replacement of Modi. But none of these leaders promised him anything, indicating how powerful Modi had grown during the last 10 years. Gujarat under Modi is also alleged to be the chief contributor for election funds for the party at the national level as also for RSS.
Feeling that senior party leaders are not in a position to act against CM, Patel stepped up his public campaign against Modi. But the BJP leadership neither at the state level nor at the national level is taking any action against Patel for his “anti-party activities’’ as the octogenarian BJP leader holds considerable influence over the Patel community accounting for a total of 15 per cent of the state’s population and dominating over industry, business and agriculture in the state. Patels have always been the backbone of the BJP in the state. The party leadership feels that any action against the Patel leader can politically boomerang on the party and harm its interests during the polls which are just a few months ahead.
Patel has been mobilising the public against Modi from the platform of the Mahagujarat Janata Party (MJP) floated by former BJP minister Gordhan Zadaphia, who had quit the BJP on the eve of 2007 assembly elections owing to what he calls “dictatorial’’ style of Modi’s functioning. If Zadaphia is to be believed, Patel will formally join MJP in the first week of August and head the party.
Sanjay Joshi episode is also going to have an adverse impact on Modi. Though Joshi does not hail from Gujarat, he has worked for several years in BJP’s organisational structure in the state in 1990s. The Joshi episode has annoyed the state RSS leadership. After Joshi was kicked out from the BJP’s parliamentary party in Mumbai, state RSS chief Bhaskar Rao Damle began attending all meets of Keshubhai Patel openly, indicating that the state RSS did not support Modi. But Damle and two others were immediately stripped of their posts with orders from Nagpur. VHP has also been fighting against Modi in the state, with its international general secretary Pravin Togadia not seeing eye to eye with Modi. Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, an affiliate of RSS, is also nursing grievances against Modi as the latter had forcibly got BKS offices vacated from a government accommodation in Gandhinagar when BKS agitated against hike in agriculture power tariff two years ago.
The Patel community in Central and Northern Gujarat, including Mehsana and Patan districts, has turned against BJP. The reason for their disenchantment with BJP is that it is only Patels who have been convicted in 2002 riots in Ode and Sardarpura cases, with BJP leadership not to their rescue and providing financial assistance for the families of the convicts facing jail terms. It was because of this reason that Patel leaders from Mehsana and Patan districts themselves approached state Congress leaders and organised a mammoth Congress public meeting. The successful Congress show has disturbed BJP so much that a senior minister and Modi’s confidante Anandiben Patel is reported to have shifted her constituency from Patan to a safe seat in Ahmedabad in 2012 assembly elections. With Patels turning hostile to BJP owing to their conviction, Anandiben feels that she may not win once again from the Patel-dominated Patan seat.
Modi is also facing problems from a sitting BJP MLA Dr. Kanubhai Kalsaria. Dr. Kalsaria openly opposed Modi inside and outside the state assembly in the allotment of land for a proposed cement factory by Nirma which has now shifted to Rajasthan. Belonging to Ahir community, Dr. Kalsaria had fielded his own candidates against BJP’s in the taluka panchayat elections in coastal Mahuva taluka where the land for Nirma’s factory had been allotted. The result: BJP candidates lost the polls and taluka panchayat was won by Kalsaria’s men, thus exposing Modi’s grip over the BJP voters. Despite this open defiance, the state BJP has not been able to take any action against Dr. Kalsaria for fear of losing support of the Ahirs in the assembly polls.
After Kalsaria episode, protests against land acquisition for industrial projects were organised at several places, including the one adjoining state capital of Gandhinagar for Modi’s pet project – Raksha Shakti University and for a nuclear power plant in coastal Bhavnagar district, thus questioning Modi’s authority. Both the projects have now been held up.
Modi also annoyed his political mentor and former deputy prime minister Lal Krishna Advani when he (Modi) did not allow him to kick-start his yatra from Gujarat in September 2011. Advani was forced to launch his yatra from Bihar. But it was in September 2011 itself that Modi launched his ‘Sadbhavna Mission’ fasts all across the state in which he projected himself as BJP’s future prime ministerial candidate. It was a direct challenge to Advani’s leadership as the latter always considered himself saffron brigade’s prime ministerial candidate after Atal Behari Vajpayee. If the BJP sources here are to be believed, Advani and some of the central BJP leaders are backing Patel with a view to clipping the wings of Modi who has outgrown so much that he has eclipsed every other BJP leader.
Meanwhile, allegations of corruption have also been levelled against several of Modi’s ministers including State Fisheries Minister Purushottam Solanki, State Agriculture Minister Dileep Sanghani and State Revenue Minister Anandiben Patel. Probes have been ordered by the court in allegations against Solanki and Sanghani.
While urban population seems to be happy with projects like Tata’s Nano car as it has helped the growth of urban centres, particularly around Ahmedabad, it seems to have made no impact at all on rural areas with rural folk, particularly women, suffering from malnutrition, an indication of the fact that ruralites have not benefited from big industrial projects.
All these developments indicate weakening of Modi’s position and 2012 assembly elections are not going to be an easy task for the BJP. With Keshubhai Patel and MJP likely to make inroads in the saffron constituency as things indicate now, it is certain that BJP is not likely to retain the seats it has today in the state assembly.