As the BJP and the Congress again face off in the electoral arena, this time in Gujarat, there is no dearth of big rallies and meta-narratives, all overflowing into the national discourse, as the campaign gains momentum across the State.
For the ruling BJP, however, the strategy is not restricted to just that. Away from the big campaign planks is the fight for 36 seats where the victory margin was fewer than 5,000 votes in the 2012 Assembly elections. A senior BJP strategist says the party wants the elections to be fought seat by seat. This is one of the reasons, party leaders say, candidates were not declared on Wednesday evening after the central election committee of the party met.
Keshubhai’s gambit
“In 2012, the Gujarat Parivartan Party (GPP), floated by former Chief Minister-turned-BJP rebel Keshubhai Patel, was in the fray. In the areas where it fielded candidates, the victory margin was narrow. Of these 38 seats with a margin of fewer than 6,000 votes, the BJP won 14, the Congress 22 and the GPP two,” said a senior leader involved in crafting the BJP’s election strategy.
“By our assessment, the GPP had an impact on 16 of these seats by polling more than the margin of victory/loss. The BJP won only three of these 16 seats, one going to the GPP and the rest to the Congress. The GPP polled just 3.63% of the votes, but it polled 10,000 votes in 28 seats, and the BJP lost 11 of these 28 seats,” he said.
The party now feels that it has a fair chance to win the 12 seats won by the Congress, as the GPP is not in the fray and the anti-incumbency factor against the Congress MLAs can be leveraged.
Almost 10 of the 38 seats decided by a narrow margin of fewer than 1,000 votes and the BJP won only one of them, while the Congress won seven.
“Therefore, while the Congress is doing the big rallies and campaign rhetoric and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is yet to hit the trail in Gujarat, for us, it is a seat-by-seat fight of the micro-level contests,” he said.
Clearly, the BJP believes victory lies in the details.
