Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, throughout his Gujarat campaign, has consistently cited Sanand, an industrial belt 30 km from Ahmedabad, to argue that the Gujarat model under Narendra Modi only “helped” industrialists.
The repeated reference was to the Gujarat government in October 2008, under Chief Minister Narendra Modi, offering over 1,000 acres of land for the Tata Nano plant.
On Sunday, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a rally at Sanand, Vijaybhai Parmar at Shiyavada village — close to the Tata Nano and Ford automobile plants — says the Gujarat model seems to have stopped at the entrance to the village.
Mud roads are slushy in the absence of a drainage network; nursing staff visit the village dispensary only once a week; villagers remain unemployed despite having some of the biggest corporates such as Tata, Ford and Colgate Palmolive and a host of pharmaceutical companies right next door.
Water shortage
“The biggest problem, though, is getting water to irrigate our fields. The car-manufacturing plants have water but not the farmers,” says Mr. Parmar, one of the few graduates from the village, who now works with a voluntary organisation in the area.
In the 2012 elections, the Congress won the Sanand seat but its incumbent MLA, Karamshi Patel, switched sides and voted for the BJP during the Rajya Sabha election earlier this year, against the Congress candidate Ahmed Patel. “His son Kanubhai Patel has now been given BJP ticket. I had campaigned for him last time but he didn’t do any work to get water to our fields,” says Rohit Patel, who belongs to the dominant Koli Patel community.
Of the 2.22 lakh voters here, Koli Patels have about 60,000 votes. The Khatriyas with 40,000 voters and the Dalits are the other politically significant groups. Both the BJP and the Congress have fielded Koli Patel candidates who belong to the OBCs.
The contest has become more intense with the former BJP MLA from the area Karambhai Rathore contesting as an Independent.
“We got more than two crore as compensation for 7 bighas of land but that got divided among the brothers. Now I live on agriculture. But not having a permanent irrigation system is a big drawback. That is our main issue,” says Hirbhai Parmar, a farmer, who reflects the opinions of other villagers, including BJP supporters.
Kantibhai Patel, claiming to be in his late 60s, has just returned from Prime Minister Modi’s rally.
“I agree that water to irrigate our fields is most important. Modi saheb will do it as he works for the poor. See how Maharashtra and Yogi (Adityanath, U.P. Chief Minister) waived off the loans of farmers,” says the BJP supporter from Shiyavada village.
Prosperous neighbour
To the left of the Tata Plant is Bol village, one of the first villages that offered land to the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation.
Here too, metalled road is almost non existent. But this village is relatively prosperous unlike Shiyavada with a row of shops, a branch of a private bank and a health centre among other amenities. Migrant workers, mostly from U.P. and Bihar, are here to buy vegetables from a weekly market.
Subhash Yadav has arrived in this place just two months ago from Chandouli in Varanasi, Mr. Modi's political constituency. Having found a job as a crane operator at a steel plant, Yadav seems to be an ambassador for the Gujarat model. “We don’t have vote here but one thing I can say is that if you are skilled, you will get a job in Gujarat,” he says.
