North Gujarat sends as many as 53 MLA to the Gujarat Assembly, one short of the 54 by Saurashtra. Spanning Ahmedabad; the State capital, Gandhinagar; and four more districts, the region is the epicentre of the Patidar agitation and a counter-agitation launched by OBC leader Alpesh Thakor from here.
The BJP, hence, will have to fight hard to retain its clout here.
In July 2015, Hardik Patel, then 22, mobilised Patidars, mostly jobless youngsters, to launch a movement to seek reservation for the community in jobs and education.
Shaking the foundations
What started in Mehsana, soon became a State-wide mass movement which challenged the Gujarat development model that was being showcased as an ideal model for governance and development by the ruling BJP. The two-decade-old dominance of the BJP came under threat.
The agitation spread in the Patidar pockets in the south and Saurashtra, and a mammoth rally of a million people was organised in Ahmedabad in August.
Clashes led to the killing of 14 protesters in police firing. Hundreds of State transport buses and other public properties were torched, forcing the authorities to call in the Army.
However, in between, the counter-agitation by the dominant Thakor community was launched to protect the interests of OBC communities, which enjoy a 27% reservation in jobs and education in Gujarat.
Both agitations, though with contrasting and conflicting motives, ended up highlighting issues such as the high rate of unemployment, farm distress, income disparity, rising inequality and skewed development.
Now, as the State goes to the polls in December, the north Gujarat region is most likely to play a crucial role because two main players who spearheaded the two mass agitations, Hardik Patel and Alpesh Thakor, 40, have joined hands with the Opposition party to fight the common enemy: BJP.
Tribal pockets
In north Gujarat districts, Thakors are the largest community with a significant presence in Patan, Mehsana, Banaskantha, Sabarkantha, Gandhinagar and rural Ahmedabad, followed by Patidars. The region has some tribal pockets; so there are three seats reserved for the Scheduled Tribes and five for the Scheduled Castes.
There are a few industrial clusters such as the auto hub of Sanand and the Becharaji belt, where Ford, Tata Nano and Suzuki plants have come up, a ceramic cluster in Sabarkantha and industrial belts in Gandhinagar and Mehsana. Agriculture and dairy are the main income-generating sources in the region, which has some highly backward pockets in Sabarkantha, Banaskantha and Patan districts.
Hardik’s charge
“The BJP tried to create a divide between various communities, among different communities but this time, nothing is working because people of Gujarat are fed up of the party now,” Mr. Hardik Patel told The Hindu when asked if his agitation would have any impact in the region after two years.
Among the four regions in the State, the north is where the BJP is weak, shows an opinion poll conducted by the Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies recently, which predicted huge gains for the Congress here.
