Lok Sabha polls 2019: A divided house could hurt Congress' tally in Gujarat

The Congress seeks to better its Lok Sabha tally in Gujarat, but factionalism and the BJP's predatory tactics beset its state unit

Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s decision to hold the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting in Ahmedabad on February 28, the first time in Gujarat in nearly 60 years, is replete with symbolism. The venue, the Sardar Patel National Memorial, is significant.
 
“Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel started their political work in Gujarat. It’s Gandhiji’s 150th birth anniversary. The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) tried to appropriate them as its icons but its claim is confined to putting up statues and not adopting their thoughts,” said Arjun Modhwadia, former Gujarat Congress president.  Jitu Patel, state Congress vice-president, said: “The CWC will reinforce our Gandhian ideology. Gujarat belongs to Gandhi and Patel. It is not Nathuram Godse’s (Gandhi’s killer).  Our message will be ‘save Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Constitution’,  ‘save Gandhiji’s swaraj (self-rule)’ and ‘save Patel’s and Jawaharlal Nehru’s mass base’.”
 
Madhusudan Mistry, a Rajya Sabha MP who once was Rahul’s eyes and ears on Gujarat, adduced a practical reason for choosing Gujarat as the host state. “The CWC is meant to create enthusiasm among our party workers and voters. We have a new and young leadership in Delhi and Gandhinagar and we need to build on our capital,” Mistry said.      
 
Mistry did not think that the quotidian reasons cited for the Congress’s repeated failure to take wing after collapsing in 1995 in Gujarat — notably the absence of a vigorous organisation and strong regional leaders —would hold good any longer. “When people are motivated to vote a party, organisation or no organisation doesn’t matter. The supposed lack of state leaders is not an issue because in the assembly or the parliamentary election, Gujarat (unit) depends on our central leaders,” he argued.

 
Mistry’s optimism to raise the Congress’s tally from nought to a “respectable” number from the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat was based on its showing in the 2017 state polls. Although the Congress was short of a majority, it picked up 77 of the 177 seats it contested and secured a vote percentage of 42.97 per cent, up from the 61 seats (40.59 vote per cent) it had in 2012.  In the House of 182 members, the BJP’s number fell from 115 in 2012 to 99, although its vote share increased marginally from 48.30 per cent to 49.44 per cent.
 
But what happened thereafter? A political observer based in Gandhinagar said: “Groupism took over the Congress. The BJP can’t win all the 26 Lok Sabha seats again, so the joust for tickets (in the Congress) has begun.”  In the competition that ensued, the fault lines between Gujarat’s “old warhorses” and the colts surfaced. Amit Chavda and Paresh Dhanani, the new and young state president and legislature party leader, respectively, were reportedly not to the “liking” of the old guard comprising Modhwadia, Siddharth Patel and Tushar Chaudhary. “Modhwadia, Patel and Chaudhary lost the elections but they still want to command (the party’s state unit),” a Congress source said.
 
Bharatsinh Solanki, veteran and son of Madhavsinh Solanki, a former CM, lay low reportedly because Chavda, a relative, was his nominee whose appointment he pushed through when Ashok Gehlot was the central minder of Gujarat. Solanki is nursing the Anand Lok Sabha constituency.

 
Independent MLA and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani’s assessment was, “The Congress without a doubt would do better. But it lacks the sense of urgency and a killer instinct.”
 
As the manoeuvring at the top continued, the BJP began its operation of identifying and snagging the Congress’s resourceful leaders and legislators. The first to leave was Kunwarji Bavaliya, a backward caste leader and Jasdan MLA, in July 2018. Within hours of exiting,  Bavaliya was appointed a minister in the Vijay Rupani cabinet. The BJP hoped to use Bavaliya to garner the Koli community’s votes in Saurashtra that it lost to the Congress in 2017.  
 
Next, in September 2018,  Jiva Patel,  a former Mehsana MP and treasurer, left the party and was promptly appointed chairman of the Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation.  “The BJP didn’t fare well in the Mehsana region (in the assembly polls), so it took away Jivabhai to shore itself up,” said Narendra Rawat, the Congress’ Vadodara city president.

 
The newest trophy the BJP’s holding is Asha Patel, Unjha MLA. The Congress never won this seat since 1995 but Asha broke the jinx in 2017.  The BJP might field her from Mehsana for the parliamentary election and “reward” Dinesh Patel, her political associate, with the presidency of Unjha’s powerful Agricultural Produce Market Committee.  “We tried to retain Ashaben but we are not in power and cannot offer her a position,” admitted Dhanani.
 
Gujarat BJP Spokesman Bharat Pandya rejected the Congress’ charge that blandishments offered in “kind” did the trick. “Those who left complained about the party’s functioning for months but nobody heard them out. The Congress should set its house in order before blaming the BJP.”


Persecution vs Wrongdoing

The BJP, according to the Congress, has resorted to the  “carrot and stick” approach towards its leaders. It accused the state government of “persecuting” its MLAs, besides luring them with key posts. The saffron party denied the charge, saying whenever “wrongdoing” was found, the offender was punished
 

Claims of alleged persecution

July 2016: Vimal Chudasma was sacked as president of the Chorwad municipality by the BJP’s Junagadh MP, Rajesh Chudasma, for reportedly gifting away steel vessels to girls who were married off in a mass ceremony organised by the Koli community. The Gujarat High Court reversed the decision and reinstated Vimal, who won on a Congress ticket from Somnath in 2017

October 2018: Parsottam Sabaria, Halvad MLA, was arrested for his alleged involvement in the Rs 1.12 crore irrigation scam. He was remanded in police custody for a day. The Congress’s claimed its legislator was apprehended on the basis of a recorded phone conversation authenticity of which has not been established

December: Kirit Patel, Patan MLA and aide of Patidar leader Hardik Patel, has been accused of embezzling funds over Rs 1 crore when he was principal of a local college. He moved the high court, which asked the state government not to take coercive action against him

January 2019: Rajesh Gohil, Dhandhuka MLA, was named in a case involving illegal sand mining worth Rs 9 lakh. He alleged that the case was politically motivated