These are the elections and results that will be watched next. Polls for six municipal corporations, which include Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Jamnagar and Bhavnagar, 31 district panchayats, 56 municipalities and 230 taluka or block panchayats, are being seen as a precursor to the Gujarat Assembly polls in December 2017. This time round there will be no Narendra Modi whose tenure from October 2001 to May 2014 as Gujarat Chief Minister saw the complete dominance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at all levels in the State.
Mahesh Langa Now, the party rules all six municipal corporations, 30 of the 31 district panchayats, 150 of 230 block panchayats and 42 of the 56 municipalities. In six municipal corporations, voting took place on Sunday. For the rest, it will be next Sunday, November 29, with counting scheduled for December 2.
Polls to the 323 local self-government bodies will be a litmus test for Chief Minister Anandiben Patel and her 18-month-old government. In a way, the results will decide her future amid speculation that any adverse result may force the party high command to have a rethink on her tenure — if not immediately, then certainly before 2017. Speculation is that BJP president Amit Shah may be the chosen one.
Impact of Patidar agitation
The polls are being held just after the State-wide agitation by the most powerful and well-to-do Patel community that has taken on the government by demanding Other Backward Classes status and reservation benefits in university and government jobs.
Their agitation, which began in early July, was led by a 22-year-old maverick, Hardik Patel, who now faces two sedition cases slapped on him by the police for “waging a war on the State” and trying to “topple the elected government and destabilize” the State. Ten people, including a police constable, were killed and the Army and para-military forces had to intervene. There was curfew and Internet services were suspended for several days.
Public property was destroyed and vandalised, which was a blot on ‘Vibrant Gujarat’. It also punctured the high-profile “Gujarat Model” that was much talked about in the run-up to the 2014 general election.
The Patels/Patidars constitute about 12 to 15 per cent of the State’s population and are traditionally agriculturists-turned-entrepreneurs with significant stakes in the lucrative cooperative sector, small and medium enterprises, education, construction, realty and diamond trade.
The community is seen as the most loyal group of the BJP and that which brought it to power in the 1990s. The Chief Minister, the State BJP president R.C. Faldu, seven top State Ministers, six MPs and 42 MLAs are from the community.
The Patels are now up in arms and keen on causing an upset. In Patel-dominated societies and localities in Ahmedabad and other places, banners have come up prohibiting BJP candidates and agents from canvassing for votes. Thousands from the community have joined the Congress in around a dozen places in north Gujarat and Saurashtra.
Such is their anger against the BJP that in Unjha town, considered the cumin seed trading capital of India, the Patidars even refused to contest the municipality elections on the BJP symbol.
“The voters, Patel community, will not support the candidates if they contest on [the] ‘Lotus’ symbol so they are seeking votes as independents,” said Naran Patel, the outspoken BJP MLA from Unjha.
The State government was reluctant to hold elections just after the Patel agitation, from July to September, and had promulgated an ordinance seeking to delay polls for three months citing law and order problems in the State.
After the ordinance, the government was preparing to appoint administrators to the local bodies whose five-year term was to expire in November in order to buy time before going to the polls. However, after the State High Court’s sharp remarks, the State Election Commission quashed the ordinance and announced the schedule immediately.
The High Court said that if elections could be held on time in insurgency-hit Jammu and Kashmir, there was no reason they couldn’t be held in Gujarat. In another petition, the court stayed the mandatory voting in the local polls introduced by the State administration. It noted that as “voting is a right of every citizen of the country, it cannot be made a mandatory duty to be performed by all electorate.”
“The polls are very critical for the State government and also for the Chief Minister. The ruling party’s performance in the polls will have a major impact on the government,” said a top cabinet Minister.
The BJP was on the backfoot in the local polls which included the Ahmedabad and Rajkot Municipal corporations back in 2000 and when Keshubhai Patel was the Chief Minister. It was the party’s poor performance then which eventually led to his being dropped and Narendra Modi being elevated as the Chief Minister in 2001.
However, for the BJP, the main challenge does not lie in the urban areas. It has a strong support base among the upper and lower middle classes, with 42 per cent of the State’s population in the urban areas.
The real hurdle lies in rural Gujarat — district and taluka panchayats — where, besides the Patel agitation, other issues include a partial drought that has affected farmers, an economic slowdown that has hit the State’s economic mainstay, small and medium enterprises, and the high prices of food items.
mahesh.langa@thehindu.co.in
