Gujarat, which goes to polls on December 1 and 5, is likely to see a churn this time around, with the state’s bipolar polity expected to become triangular.
Going by opinion polls and sources on the ground, the BJP is set to return to power in the state. However, the Aam Admi Party is likely to emerge as a third player, not just increasing its vote share but also winning seats this time, largely at the expense of the Congress but also attracting a small section of BJP votes.
The collapse of a bridge at Morbi in the state killed 141 people, comes as an embarrassment for the BJP government there. There are also concerns regarding unemployment and inflation. However, for these to become issues that matter during voting, opposition parties or popular movements should be able to convert them into electoral issues that make people decide which way to vote. There is no evidence that either Congress or AAP has been able to drill the message into the voters.
Unlike the last assembly election, when the Congress was very active in Gujarat and the influential Patidar community was also mobilising against the BJP, the Congress is being seen as largely on the mute in the state. Kejriwal is very active but doesn’t seem to be seeing it as an election with a singular focus. He is looking at using the slow start of the Congress in the state to attract its voters to AAP and also confuse the Hindutva voter through his demand to have currency notes bear the images of Goddess Lakshmi and Lord Ganesh.
Kejriwal has also promised free power ‘within three months of coming to power', 10-lakh jobs for unemployed youth, and even unemployment allowance till the youth don’t get jobs. Added to these sops is a sop aimed at attracting BJP voters: Rs 40 a day for the upkeep of cows. He also sought to attract tribals by saying that the Tribal Advisory Council would be headed by a tribal.
The Congress also promised free power and 10-lakh jobs to match AAP. Prime Minister Modi, on his part, launched projects worth Rs 6,000 crores in the state. The state government also announced that it had set up a committee under a High Court judge to implement a uniform civil code in Gujarat, with Kejriwal seeking to know why the party was doing it only in the state, not in all of India.
Why is Congress less visible?
The reasons why Congress isn’t as visible in the state as last time are easy to find. The party's focus now is Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, which isn’t passing through poll-bound Gujarat. The Congress is highlighting the yatra as its key activity at a time of the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh polls, which makes these elections acquire a secondary status in its scheme of things.
This could have worked in a state where Congress had a powerful regional satrap. This could be a workable model in Rajasthan before Ashok Gehlot fell out of favour with the party leadership or in Punjab when Captain Amarinder Singh was Chief Minister. In such states, Rahul Gandhi’s presence would be optional during the polls.
However, with Gujarat having had no Congress Chief Minister for long – and Ahmed Patel, who was once influential here, dead – Rahul Gandhi could have been the only vote-catcher for the party in the state. When he is occupied elsewhere, Kejriwal has a genuine chance of splitting Congress votes and making it a triangular contest in which AAP tries to match up to the Congress. If the fight is for the second and third slots – as Kejriwal is trying to make it at a time when Rahul cannot find time to focus on Gujarat – the victory of the BJP becomes an expected result.
“Why did the Bharat Jodo Yatra not begin from Gujarat? A groundswell for Rahul Gandhi could have stopped Kejriwal in his tracks and helped the Congress. The Congress strategy is like studying Chemistry before the Geography exam,” a local political observer in Gujarat told me on condition of anonymity.
Surveys on Gujarat – like the survey of C Voter early in October – are showing that the approval rating of the Prime Minister is still high in Gujarat, though the approval rating of the Chief Minister is significantly lower. This allows Modi to ask voters in his home state to vote in his name. Modi has also changed CMs in Gujarat in the last eight years, which makes it easier for him to ask voters to vote for him as the distant but biggest boss of the party. The most visible challenge to the BJP in the state till some years back, the young Patidar leader Hardik Patel, has also joined the BJP recently. So, there is no visible challenge to the party that seems to be capable of denting it enough to make it lose.
By all indications, Gujarat seems to be going the BJP’s way. The new dimension, however, is the rise of AAP, which will try to replace the Congress in the state in the coming years if it can make the contest triangular this time.
(Vikas Pathak teaches at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. The views expressed are personal).
Read his other views here.
