Despite Keshubhai, Patels Stay With Bjp

Industrious, united, monied, hardheaded and numerous, the Patels have everything it takes to dominate not only the economy but also the politics of Gujarat. If the BJP wins the majority of assembly and Lok Sabha seats here, it will be primarily because of the Patels, standing like a phalanx behind the party.

The easy explanation is that the BJPs putative chief minister is one of them, Keshubhai Patel, whose last stint in power ended after just seven months, owing to the rebellion by 47 BJP MLAs, led by Shankersinh Vaghela in late 1995.

Indeed, BJP workers are touting the goodness of that seven-month government, the development, the honesty, the lack of bias towards any community. But that the Patels, estimated at 19 per cent of the states population, are voting BJP because of him is only part of the truth. As Bhablubhai Virabhai Wala of Bahadurgarh village in Amreli district points out, Keshubhai damaged builders a lot even though they are Patels.

 

Indeed, a major reason for the rebellion against Patels government in 1995 was the large number of powerful lobbies of Patels that had been upset by his stern implementation of various laws that curbed their profits. Leading property developer Bhulabhai Patel died in jail after being booked for encroaching on public land.

Kanti Patel, another builder who had constant access to former Chief Minister Chimanbhai Patel, was put behind bars uner the Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Act. He was accused of trying to take over the Special Reserve Polices land in Vadodara.

Petroleum companies had reported a sales increase of 15 per cent after a drive to curb the adulteration of petrol. Most pumps are operated by Patels, as are oil mills, which were targeted for evading sales tax. A single miller was nabbed for evading taxes to the tune of Rs 135 crore. (Less than 10 Patel millers control 8-0 per cent of Indias edible oil trade, but coopertaives, which account for about 15 per cent of the oil trade, pay 80 per cent of the taxes from the oil trade.)

The Patels, at least those in these activties, and their many relatives and friends, were furious. But having now experienced two years of a governemnt which they perceive as antagonistic because it is controlled by Vaghela-a leading light of that other powerful and equally numerous community of Gujarat, the Kshatriyas-the Patels generally appear convinced that a clean, efficient government run by a Patel would be far better.

Major urban centres in Gujarat, as in many other parts of the coutnry, have in any case swung heavily towards the BJP through the course of its Ram Janmabhoomi horse race. Most Patels see the BJP-conservative, religious and a champion of domestic business-as their party, rather than the Congress.

Along with the Brahmins, Vaishyas, Jains and other relatively prosperous communities they comprise more than 30 per cent of the population. In the first half of the 1990s, the BJP had used the Ram Janmabhoomi issue to weld the long-standing antagonists, the Patels and the Kshatriyas (estimated at another 19 per cent of the population), into an almost unbeatable phalanx. So, the party won 20 of the states 26 Lok Sabha seats in 1991 and 121 of the 182 assembly seat in 1995.

Perhaps it was too good to last but spurred by the gang of forces antagonised by Keshubhai Patels stern implementiaon of the law, that powerful Hindu alliance was broken by Vaghelas rebellion.

If the party is still set to win a large number of seats, it is because the anti-Patel KHAM (Kshatriya, Harijan, Ahir, Muslim) alliance that Madhavsinh Solanki (a kshatriya) had built is not back in place. Many Kshatriyas still see Vaghelas Rashtriya Janata Party as their party and the Congress as the party of the BCs and other lower levels of being. It (the RJP) will get only 10 seats in the assembly. Hes losing, that everyone knows, but hes our man, says Wala of Bahadurgarh of Vaghela.

Not every Kshatriya is as dedicated to a losing cause as Wala, though. And as long as even a third of the Kshatriyas vote for the BJP-the partys leaders expect more than that-it should sail through in many constituencies, with the en bloc votes of Patels, Brahmins, Vaishyas and Jains.