Winning elections and winning the hearts of the people are two very different things. NaMo managed to do both in Gujarat, and it is about time the state leaders strive to achieve that.
Gujarat will vote in two phases in the first week of December. The Assembly election results in the western state will be closely watched, not just in India, but also abroad, as it is the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. Anything less than a massive victory will be declared as the beginning of the end of Modi by the BJP’s opponents.
The BJP will be seeking a seventh consecutive win in the western state—a feat achieved in India only by the Left Front in West Bengal. The BJP and Modi will put in their best efforts to not just ensure a win but also make it big. Amit Shah would hope to achieve in 2022 what he couldn’t in 2017—Mission 150.
2017-2022
The BJP’s 2017 victory in Gujarat turned out to be the party’s worst performance in two decades, with it failing to reach three digits. Despite a 49.1% vote share—over 1% increase from the 2012 polls—the BJP won only 99 seats, 16 less than its 2012 tally. The Congress won 77 seats, putting up its best performance since 1985 when its Kshatriya-Harijan-Adivasi-Muslim formula had resulted in a record 149 seats.
Winning Gujarat for the sixth straight time was no mean feat. While the 2017 results may have looked embarrassing for the BJP in its strongest bastion, the party did well considering it was facing multiple challenges like the Patidar agitation, farmers’ distress, the impact of GST, party infighting, and two Chief Ministers in a short span of three-and-a-half-years. Any other party would have lost in such an adverse situation.
Since the 2017 election results, a lot has changed. The BJP tally in the Assembly has gone up to 111 from 99. The BJP won all 26 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections (the second time in a row), an impressive 8 out of 8 wins in the bypolls in 2020, and a phenomenal victory in the local body polls in 2021 (all municipal corporations, all 31 district panchayats, 75 of the 81 municipalities, and over 200 of the 231 taluka panchayats).
To calm popular anger after the second wave of Covid, the BJP changed the Chief Minister and the entire cabinet in September 2021. It brought in a Patel CM as an olive branch to the Patidar community. The BJP has not given tickets to the former CM Vijay Rupani, Deputy CM Nitin Patel and several ministers in that cabinet. It has firmly projected the current CM Bhupendra Patel as the CM face of the BJP.
CM Bhupendra Patel is a first-time MLA, with no political baggage, has a clean image, and belongs to a politically influential caste. He is also an urbanite, which is a bonus considering that urban Gujarat is a BJP stronghold, and given the media projections of the city-centric AAP as the third important player in the elections. The victory margins of the BJP in the urban and semi-urban areas have always been too big to worry about AAP eating at its vote share. Also, traditional BJP voters are more prone to not voting than switching their loyalty to other parties. Hence, the AAP is more likely to cut the non-BJP vote, which might end up helping the BJP in regions like Saurashtra, where it had a slightly higher vote share than the Congress in the last polls, but got fewer seats.
That the BJP is not going to take anything lightly this time around was evident when the Member of Parliament from Surat was made the Minister of State for Textiles within months of the AAP replacing the Congress as the opposition in the Surat Municipal Corporation with 27 seats against the BJP’s 93. Surat had given 15 out of 16 Assembly seats to the BJP in the 2017 polls despite the traders’ strikes against the GST and the Patidar agitation-related violence in the city.
Third parties have rarely succeeded in Gujarat, and even if they do, eventually end up merging with one of the two big parties. The political parties created by heavyweights like Chimanbhai Patel, Shankersinh Vaghela and Keshubhai Patel, are a testimony to that fact. AAP is an outsider, with no local face. It lacks the grassroots network to take on the BJP. It is hoping for its offers of freebies to work with Gujaratis, who inherently understand that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Kejriwal has played soft Hindutva, but the street-smart Gujaratis are even less likely to fall for it than they did for Rahul Gandhi’s temple hopping in the last polls. Kejriwal’s appeal, the Delhi model and media ads are no match for Narendra Modi’s emotional bond with the Gujaratis, the more established Gujarat model and the BJP’s mammoth organisational machinery.
The Congress has kept its campaign low-key and is focused on its rural stronghold, while hoping for the AAP to cut the BJP’s votes in the urban areas. 19 Congress MLAs have defected in the last five years, the latest being its 10-time MLA and a prominent tribal leader, Mohansinh Rathwa. The Congress also bears the burden of the self-goal specialist Rahul Gandhi and his imitators. If it was Mani Shankar Aiyar’s “neech” comment in the last polls, this time it is Madhusudan Mistry’s “aukat” remark, which Modi is taking full advantage of. The Congress had decided to steer clear of targeting Modi during campaigning as it never works out well for the grand old party, but Congress leaders are so used to abusing or insulting Modi that they slip. Rahul Gandhi largely stayed away from Gujarat, but made anti-Gujarat comments in Maharashtra. There was the photo-op with Medha Patkar, a person hated by Gujaratis across political, religious, and caste divides.
With the Supreme Court upholding the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) quota, Hardik in the BJP camp, prominent Patidar Sangathans supporting the party, and a Patel CM to boast of, the BJP does not have to worry about the Patidar anger in this election. The BJP’s understanding of caste/sub-caste equations is far better than the other parties. Add to this the unmatched poll machinery of the BJP, the politician acumen of Modi-Shah and their in-depth understanding of Gujarat, and most importantly, the Narendra Modi magic, which helped save the BJP in the last polls.
All in all, this year’s Assembly elections do not appear to be as challenging for the BJP as the 2017 polls. The challenge the state BJP faces, and will continue to face in the coming years, is that of the performance of the post-Modi Gujarat governments failing to meet the excellent track record of the Modi-led Gujarat government. The party has failed to overcome this challenge effectively in the last eight years and counting.
THE NAMO FACTOR
Gujaratis love Narendrabhai. They are willing to turn a blind eye to the state BJP government’s shortcomings, even failures, for the sake of NaMo. However, that does not take away the resentment or anger that they might have against the state government for failing to meet their expectations, which Modi himself had raised during his tenure as the CM, and continues to do so as the PM.
NaMo as the Gujarat CM had set the development bar very high. Instead of trying to reach that standard, or aspiring to better NaMo’s track record, the state BJP is depending on NaMo to use his sway on the voters to win elections. The post-Modi period in Gujarat has witnessed three BJP Chief Ministers, none of them managing to inspire the people even half as much as NaMo used to, let alone carry forward his development and governance legacy. The BJP might think that the TINA (there is no alternative) factor will always work for it, but while BJP voters may not vote for other parties, they are prone to exercising the abstain option, which can affect the BJP fortunes in the state. This was reflected in a lower voter turnout during the 2017 polls compared to the 2012 polls. Modi understands this well.
Young Gujarati voters have not seen the pre-BJP era in the state. They compare the Modi and the post-Modi times, and the latter has been underwhelming, to put it mildly. In fact, the first-time voters in this election were too young even during the UPA time. All they have experienced as teenagers and adults is the BJP governance—in the state and at the Centre.
Young voters feel a connection with Modi, because as Gujarat CM, Modi used to go to different parts of Gujarat for school enrollment drives every year, and would look for opportunities to interact with the children throughout the year. This is why, in his speeches, Modi keeps reminding the people how the state faced acute water shortages, power cuts, curfews, poor education, bad roads, etc., before the BJP came to power and how the BJP government positively transformed the state. He also understands the voters’ fatigue and the possibility of the BJP voters sitting out the elections to show their displeasure. In all his speeches, he is requesting the voters to grant him a personal wish—that of all-time high voting.
During his tenure as CM, Modi started encouraging people’s participation in the development process, which was quite successful. In view of that, the BJP’s election slogan is—aa Gujarat mein banavyu che (I have made this Gujarat)—passing on the ownership of Gujarat’s development to the people, and thereby, making it their responsibility to not tolerate anything that is said against Gujarat’s development record. When Modi says, “I have made this Gujarat” and then asks the people to repeat it, he is telling them that you and I are a successful team, and you are voting for us, not for anyone else. The master of subtle messaging that he is, even his appearance is fine-tuned to resemble a lot more like CM Modi. While this is great for winning the election, it is important that the people develop as much faith in CM Patel, as they have in their Narendrabhai.
Winning elections and winning the hearts of the people are two very different things. NaMo managed to do both in Gujarat, and it is about time the state leaders strive to achieve that. The BJP cannot overplay the “for NaMo’s sake” factor to make the people ignore the underperformance of the state government in comparison to NaMo’s tenure as CM.
Narendra Modi was brought in as the Gujarat CM in 2001 to calm the anger against the then Keshubhai Patel-led BJP government in the wake of the earthquake. Instead of getting overwhelmed by the stature of Keshubhai or his administrative inexperience, he worked hard to create a vibrant Gujarat. CM Patel simply has to follow in the course already charted by NaMo. Otherwise, Gujarat BJP’s inability to fill in the big shoes of Narendra Modi will cost the Gujarat BJP as well as the state more in the coming years than any opposition political party could.
Semu Bhatt is a Mumbai-based strategic advisor and author. She writes on geopolitics and governance.