BJP plays the freebies game to match AAP's goodies for the Gujarati voters

The prelude to the polls also saw mega projects unveiled by the Centre and the handing out of a few sops to match the breathless pace at which AAP has promised an array of goodies to voters

As the Election Commission is expected to announce the schedule for the Gujarat Assembly polls after Diwali, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — now in power for 27 years (with small breaks) in Gandhinagar — has swung into mission mode.

If Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah are on a relentless campaign on home terrain, the state BJP has galvanised the cadre through a fortnight-long “Gaurav Yatra”, which focused largely on the Adivasi-dominated areas. The BJP’s feedback was that while it lost “significantly” in the Adivasi belt in the last state polls, it gained nearly 50 per cent of the scheduled tribe vote in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Therefore, the strategy is to ensure that the gains of the past three years are not eroded, especially because the Congress is focused on regrouping its original Adivasi support.

Tying up the various aspects of the BJP’s well-honed micro-management is the slogan “Bharosa nee Bhajap Sarkar” (trust the BJP government), underpinned by the discourse that like in the past elections, this time the Opposition is out to get Modi and, by implication, the people of Gujarat and their “self-respect”.

“The attacks on the Opposition are intended to tell our workers not to be complacent about victory,” a BJP official said.

The prelude to the polls also witnessed a slew of mega projects unveiled by the Centre and the handing out of a few sops ostensibly to match the breathless pace at which a new player, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), has promised an array of goodies to voters.

On his last visit to inaugurate “DefExpo 2022” at Gandhinagar to give an impetus to the defence sector, Modi also launched central and state government projects totalling Rs 7,710 crore in Rajkot, Saurashtra’s headquarters. Five years ago, the BJP turned in a below-par performance in Saurashtra and north Gujarat but made good the losses in the central and southern regions. Simultaneously, Shah amplified the BJP’s “social” commitment by founding four smart schools by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, after the AAP leaders criticised the Gujarat government for “neglecting” education.

The BJP brass’s Gujarat campaign has been marked more by aggression towards the Opposition and less about showcasing the five-year record of the state government that saw two chief ministers, Vijay Rupani and Bhupendra Patel, the incumbent.

“Unfortunately, the attack on the Opposition in, say, an hour-long speech gets highlighted whereas 30 minutes of the same address dwells on development,” said Yamal Vyas, Gujarat BJP’s spokesperson.

“Our main thrust is the 69,000 km of Narmada canals, which have watered the interiors of drought-prone Kutch.”

Gordhan Zadafia, state BJP vice-president who was in charge of the just-concluded “Gaurav Yatra”, explained the importance of the Narmada leitmotif. “This is our principal message that in a perennially dry region like Saurashtra, where 450 villages depended only on tankers before 1995, today over 11,000 villages are fed directly by water from the Narmada. There was a report that if North Gujarat was not irrigated it would turn into a desert because the water level had dropped to 2,000 feet. The Sujalam Sufalam Jal Sanchay Abhiyan transformed the area’s face because with the sanction of a tribunal, we could divert surplus Narmada water to 1 million acres each in North Gujarat and Kutch. Districts like Banaskantha and Patan are posting record yields in agriculture and dairy farming.”

However, a perception also crept into the state BJP that it was “time” the leaders conceptualised, crafted, and sold a new idea. A source said: “Having been in power for nearly 30 years, a whole generation has taken development, roads, irrigation, uninterrupted power and infrastructure-building for granted. We have to project something more related to young people’s aspirations, something that will transcend traditional businesses and impart new-age skill sets.”

Asked if there was an “idea” on the horizon, the source took the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, or GIFT City, at Gandhinagar as an example. Inaugurated last July by Modi, GIFT City was billed as an international financial services hub to ensure greater transparency to the gold trade in India. The Gujarat exchange is the third of its kind globally.

Although the AAP, which has apparently made Gujarat its next political destination after Punjab, was dismissed as “hot air” by the BJP, Deepal Trivedi, an Ahmedabad-based political observer and media entrepreneur, maintained: “There’s no denying that the AAP has set the agenda in part. Entire sections of society are restive. Police constables, teachers, other government employees, and ex-servicemen were out on the street at various times, demanding hiked wages and pension parity. No doubt Gujarat is an entrepreneurial state and doesn’t survive on freebies. But when the AAP promises sops like a monthly allowance for jobless youths and women above 18, they sound attractive. Nobody thinks deeply of how a government can underwrite such sops.”

Although the BJP weighed in against freebies in a recent debate — with C R Paatil, state president, warning voters not to be “misguided” — the Gujarat government’s budgetary announcements contained features such as free wi-fi in 4,000 villages, monthly rations of 1 kg dal, 2 kg channa dal, 1 kg cooking oil to pregnant women and lactating mothers for 1,000 days, and free textbooks to students of government schools.

A senior BJP official remarked, “Society’s expectations never end. We have to play along.”

The most recent handouts were two free cooking gas cylinders to 3.8 million Ujjwala scheme beneficiaries and a 10 per cent value-added tax cut on CNG and PNG.