A curious catalyst has surfaced in the electoral chemistry of Gujarat. In the Hindutva laboratory, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been the dominant reactant as also the end product for the last 15 years. Nationalism, a sub-national Gujarati pride and Modi’s larger-than-life persona have come to be linked organically with a deeply religious and communally divided electorate. The other reactant, the Congress, has steadily lost its atomic weight, structural strength and political viability.

The result is predictable if viewed only as a reaction between the two principal reactants.

New leaders

But in a week-long field experiment, I realised that the new catalyst and its strength in altering the equation cannot be undermined. A sharp rural distress, joblessness, squeeze of industry through GST and demonetisation are part of the chemical composition of this catalyst. These political economy issues hitherto eclipsed by the emotive appeal of Hindutva and Modi have now found fresh articulation through home-grown leaders like Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakur and Jignesh Mavani.

Among them, Hardik Patel and his Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) clearly form the base that aims to neutralise the acidic efficacy of Modi’s chemistry in Gujarat.

For all practical purposes, the PAAS is functioning like a parallel political party with conveners in every village and taluka and a galaxy of leaders besides Hardik. They carry a blue-red flag with a farmer’s face and wear t-shirts with Sardar Patel, Bhagat Singh and Hardik painted in the front and the slogan “Jai Sardar Jai Patidar” emblazoned at the back. They have made it their business to track and troll Modi as he launches his final campaign in a critical election.

As I followed Hardik from Bela village in Morbi to a public meeting in Rajkot, the discourse never wavered from bread and butter issues on a day that Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi’s “non-Hindu” credentials dominated the media.

Groundswell of support

The talk on the ground remained strictly focused on crop prices, lack of public health and education, joblessness, drinking water and rural roads. The “Gujarat Model” was discussed threadbare in corner meetings and “chai pe charcha”, a mocking adaptation of the Prime Minister’s famed campaign methods. Speaker after speaker in nondescript villages and towns analysed inequality in income levels with Hardik delivering a punchline: “The river front development in Ahmedabad is not development. It is what we get for our groundnut, cotton and castor seeds. If they want to book me for sedition for raising issues of farmers and hardworking people of Gujarat, let them do it. I and six crore Gujaratis are no longer scared of their dadagiri.”

Rajkot on November 29 witnessed an extraordinary show with the Rajput Karni Sena from the neighbouring Udaipur in Rajasthan, farmers from Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh where police firing on an agitation over crop prices had resulted in five deaths, and local Patidar leaders held a crowd of over 40,000 in thrall before Hardik arrived on the scene. Their target of attack was the BJP but a clever distinction was made about how the aim to defeat the BJP does not automatically make them “permanent Congress supporters” although the Congress will naturally be the beneficiary of their campaign.

“They are trying to divide us on caste lines. Let them know that the farmer has no caste. Let we the people show them (the BJP) our power of vote. This is what should happen in a democracy. I hold no brief for the Congress. If they do not work for us, let us throw them out after five years. But do not let the BJP assume that we can be taken for granted and fooled for another 20 years,” said Hardik.

These rallies and roadshows traverse from Saurashtra where the BJP won 33 out of the total 48 seats in the region to South Gujarat where the ruling party dominated, winning 24 of the 29 seats including all the 12 seats in the Surat city in the 2012 assembly elections. In some of the villages and residential areas in rural Saurashtra and Surat city, there are boards barring the BJP’s entry.

Modi and the BJP are being challenged on their home turf by entirely home-grown leaders who speak the same language and have an organic connect with the voters. What can be gleaned is that if it was just Rahul Gandhi that Modi and the BJP were fighting, there would have been no contest. But there is a contest now that the BJP, its formidable organisational muscle and Modi’s charisma is being simultaneously challenged by alternative political structures and new leaders. PAAS’s efficacy lies in its proclaimed non-alignment. It is a bit like the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on the make which has offered outside support to the Congress in an election against the BJP.

Formidable machine

A senior BJP leader concedes that “people are upset” and that Rahul Gandhi, through the triumvirate of young leaders — Hardik, Alpesh and Jignesh – has “managed to create a confusion”. But he is equally certain that the BJP will “win them over eventually” and get 150 seats in the 182-member assembly.

The BJP’s confidence in Gujarat is not without its basis.

It has the strongest organisation in the state and has been a natural choice for the voters over two decades. It is also a party that thinks on its feet and manages elections better than the Congress can ever hope to. In Surat, for instance, where Patidars from Saurashtra form the backbone of the textile and diamond polishing trade, the party has gone to great lengths to recover from its losses due to the Patel quota agitation stir in 2015. Following an agitation by PAAS, the BJP lost 22 seats in the Surat Municipal Corporation elections in 2015. Its tally came down from 98 to 76 seats in the 116-member Corporation. The Congress was the direct beneficiary, raising its tally from 14 to 36 seats.

The BJP has since been galvanised. It has changed as many as eight out of total 12 sitting MLAs in the Surat city area and pushed all its star campaigners into holding at least four public rallies, road shows and corner meetings every day. Still, from zilch, the Congress is now in fight in at least five out of 12 Surat seats. The biggest takeaway is that while Congress still remains rootless and toothless in Gujarat, its campaign has found fresh energy from the new catalysts owing largely to rural distress, GST and demonetisation. Unlike the previous elections, there is a contest this time in Gujarat.

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