Modi rides back on Congress mistakes

RK Misra | Gujarat | 21 September 2009 |

Gujarat strongman has received a shot in the arm just when his fortunes seemed to be down.

Overconfidence of the Congress and its stupid assumptions has pumped new life into the sagging fortunes of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The man, who was gripped by self doubt after the Lok Sabha elections and other political downturns, has changed overnight. After a fairly long pause, he has cause to be happy as his party won five of the seven seats in the by-elections to the state Vidhan Sabha, results for which were declared on September 14.

The victory was sweeter because six of the seven seats were held by the Congress. While five of them fell vacant after those who held them were elected to the Lok Sabha while in the case of the sixth the candidate had died The results constitute a shot in the arm for Modi personally since it demonstrates that he still holds sway over the electorate. The voting for the seven seats was held on September 10.

The ruling party in Gujarat busted the Congress bastions in Chotila, Jasdan Danta and Dehgam besides bagging Sami-Harij. The Congress, in turn wrested Kodinar from the BJP and retained its own Dhoraji.

While Chotila fell vacant after the sitting Congress MLA Popatbhai Jhinjharia passed away, the remaining six went to the polls because the sitting legislators were elected to Parliament in the recently concluded polls. Congress legislator from Jasdan, Kunwarji Bavalia was elected to the Lok Sabha from Rajkot, Dhoraji legislator Vithal Radadia from Porbandar, Danta MLA Mukesh Gadhvi from Banaskantha, Dehgam MLA Jagdish Thakore from Patan. Sami Congress MLA Bhavsinh Rathod had switched to the BJP to contest the Patan seat but lost to Jagdish Thakore of the Congress. Against the six held by the Congress, Kodinar was the lone seat vacated by BJP legislator Dinu Solanki who was elected to the Lok Sabha from Junagadh. The BJP had chosen Vasant Bhatol son of party leader Parthi Bhatol, chairman of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) for the Danta seat to oppose Congress candidate Nurbhai Umatiya, a former MLA of Danta.

The Congress belief in lamp-post politics took a severe drubbing. It had chosen relatives of outgoing legislators in the mistaken assumption that love-me, love-my kin is still the accepted norm of voters in Gujarat. The party was in for a rude shock when Bhavnaben Koli daughter of sitting MLA Kunwarji Bavalia lost in Jasdan as did Manoj Jhinjaria, son of sitting Congress MLA, late Popatbhai Jhinjaria in Chotila. In Dhoraji, Jayesh Radadia, son of Vithal Radadia who held the seat and is now Porbandar MP was the only exception.

Decisions foisted from Delhi, have more often then not, been the bane of the Congress in Gujarat. Inside sources have it that state Congress president Siddarth Patel had drawn the attention of the high command to giving tickets to relatives of sitting legislators but in vain. He was wringing his hands in despair as the results started coming in on Monday morning.

Rampant groupism and stupid assumptions became the hallmark of decision making in the distribution of tickets. Former Union textile minister Shankersinh Vaghela did not campaign for CJ Chavda, the Congress candidate for Dehgam. Chavda is a one-time Vaghela man who had lost in the last Vidhan Sabha elections from Gandhinagar. Against the dissensions within the Congress, Modi had a team of 25 legislators and two MPs besides numerous state ministers working to shore up the prospects of the BJP candidate in Dehgam. Great stress was laid in the voting pattern in the last Lok Sabha elections and the Assembly constituency-wise break up. This was done ignoring the fact that a different set of factors guide the voters to arrive at different conclusions while voting for the Centre and in the states. Jasdan and Chotila are impregnable Congress bastions and have been so for long. In fact, Jasdan is a seat held by the Congress for good of 40 years. Both the bastions were breached by the BJP this time. Wrong choice of candidate and over confidence did the party in.

The results have come as a shot in the arm for the chief Minister. It confirms Modi’s hold, more so after the Lok Sabha election results in which the BJP managed to increase their tally only by one seat bagging 15 of the total 26 seats in the state. This constituted a major setback for Modi since he was widely billed to deliver 24 of the total 26 seats from the state to his party. The loss of the high profile Junagadh municipal corporation election and the Congress victories in many other cooperatives thereafter sought to further cement talks of the Chief Minister loosing grip. The results of the by-election thus are a major boost for him.

The state Congress president, Siddhartha Patel, promised to hold a review meeting of the party to analyse the causes for the set-back, while an elated BJP claimed that the Centre’s inability to hold the price line and the performance of the Modi government were responsible for the party’s victory. In a “victory rally” held at Dehgam soon after the results were declared, Modi lambasted the Congress leaders and asked the party to stop defaming Gujarat and promised to visit all five constituencies in the next couple of days where the BJP has registered victories.

With Monday’s by-election results, the BJP tally in the 182-member state Assembly went up to 121, three more than the seats it had won in the December 2007 state Assembly elections, while the Congress strength came down from 59 in 2007 to 55. Three seats are held by the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), while the JD(U) has one and two independents are also in the House.

It was perhaps for the first time after Narendra Modi came to power in Gujarat that the ruling BJP seemed locked in a rearguard action to fend-off an aggressive Congress. Though the by-election results will not materially affect the balance of power in the Vidhan Sabha where BJP rules with a clear majority, all eyes were focused on it since it was believed to be a barometer of Modi’s popularity.

The Gujarat Chief Minister has been on slippery ground ever since the Lok Sabha elections. Almost as if to make up, the party, under direct instructions from Modi, upped the profile of a politically insignificant Junagadh municipal corporation elections to such heights, that it became almost a prestige affair for the party. A former Union minister, an ex-MP, a former state minister and numerous other big-wigs were made to contest ward elections by the BJP and the state party top brass hurled everything at their disposal in the campaigning which also had the Chief Minister himself announcing a Rs 600 crore package for the minority community.

The results came as a shock when the BJP lost control of the civic body to the Congress and all the five Muslim candidates put up by the BJP were defeated. Modi’s old style of replacing the bulk of the sitting candidates – 29 of the 35 sitting councilors in this case – also did not work. Soon thereafter a concerted effort was made to wrest control of the Congress controlled milk cooperative, Amul but the all out effort floundered with the Congress managing to retain control and all the 13 party backed candidates winning. Modi’s gambit in banning his own party leader Jaswant Singh’s book on Jinnah to win over Patel voters also seems to have backfired with the high court lifting the ban.

The BJP which under Modi had made a habit of sweeping any and every election whether civic or panchayat has been encountering rough weather of late. By-polls for 33 seats in different municipalities in the state were held recently. The Congress clinched 10, independents supported by it won five while the BJPs tally declined from 28 to 18. The BJP also failed to dent the Congress dominated Kaira Cooperative Bank election and Congress Union ministers Dinsha Patel and Bharat Solanki who hail from the region worked to ensure that 15 of the 19 candidates put up by the party got elected. The BJP panel led by former minister CD Patel came a cropper. In the Bhavnagar district cooperative bank election last Wednesday, the entire Congress panel was elected and the BJP MLA Keshubhai Nagrani was also defeated.

Aware of the pitfalls of high profiling, Chief Minister Modi this time kept a safe distance from the by-poll campaign, the first time he has done so. This is not withstanding the fact that its outcome was a prestige issue for him. The results have pumped adrenaline back into his political veins.