Ahmedabad: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will try every trick in the book, and leave little to chance, in their endeavour to retain all 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat in general elections next year. The strategy at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s and BJP national president Amit Shah’s home state, in fact, is based on wooing Congress party leaders, having mass appeal, with top posts in the BJP.
After former Congress MLA Kunvarji Kundaliya defected to the BJP, he was given a cabinet berth earlier this week. Kundaliya is a prominent Koli leader with significant hold in the Saurashtra region, where the BJP suffered heavily in 2017 state elections.
Now the ruling party is looking to get more sitting MLAs, especially tribal and OBC leaders from the Congress. “The strategy is very simple. In case of Kundaliya, BJP needed a strong Koli leader as Parshottam Rupala is not keeping well. Unlike 2017, we will only look at those with a strong mass appeal, and can be projected as a face of the community to which they belong,” said a BJP leader, requesting anonymity.
In Gujarat, the BJP has not been very successful in creating mass leaders, and there is little time to do so before the general elections in May next year. The party now hopes to strengthen its hold in Saurashtra, which has eight Lok Sabha seats including Kutch, Bavaliya, Surendranagar, Bhavnagar, Junagadh, Amreli and Rajkot.
On 6 July, Congress MLA from Khambhaliya, Vikram Madam, had said that he would quit the party if his concerns were not addressed. Madam had, however, said he is unlikely to join the saffron party. “I would not like to speak anything more before the media,” Madam said over the phone. A former MP and a strong OBC leader representing the Ahir community, Madam has a created a strong base in Jamnagar and Dev Bhumi Dwarka districts.
However, the BJP may also have to be wary of the fact that its decision to field Congress turncoats in the 2017 assembly polls was a disaster with four of the six candidates losing their seats. As many as 14 legislators had switched sides to join the BJP before the December 2017 state polls. The ruling party was reduced to 99 seats from the 115 it had won in 2012, while the Congress gained considerable ground to win 79 seats compared to 61 five years ago.
The Gujarat state elections in December last year, which saw the revival of a party that was reduced to about 42 MLAs after has also seen some of its senior most leaders including Shaktisinh Gohil, Arjun Modhwadia, Tushar Chaudhary and Siddharth Patel losing their seats to BJP. Congress, whose tally rose to 79 seats in 2017 from 61 in 2015, saw many of its young leaders taking leadership role in the party. This it seems has caused discontent among many senior leaders who feel left out in the current scenario.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi is set to visit the state later this month and many senior leaders including Madam are likely to meet him and discuss their issues.
However for the BJP, the results with Congress turncoat legislators was not very impressive in 2017 as four out of six candidates it had fielded, lost their seats.
Paresh Dhanani MLA from Amreli and a young Patidar was made the leader of opposition earlier this year, upsetting Kundaliya who was eyeing the post. In March, forty one year old Amit Chavda was made president of Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC), replacing Bharatsinh Solanki, a senior leader and former minister in the UPA government at the Centre.
OBC constitute about 40% of the state’s population and the BJP’s tallest OBC leader Shankar Chaudhary lost to Congress candidate Geniben Thakor, also an OBC leader.
“We are working to build our position in Banaskantha, Mehsana and Patan,” said another BJP official in the know of the development. He too did not wish to be named.
Congress last year fielded OBC leader Alpesh Thakor who contested his first election from Radhanpur in Patan district and won. Thakor has reportedly sought Lok Sabha seats from Banaskantha and Patan.
Former JD(U) leader Chhotu Vasava who earlier had an alliance with the BJP in Gujarat, floated his own party Bharatiya Tribal Party during 2017 state elections and formed an alliance with the Congress. His party won two seats in the tribal belt of Gujarat. Vasava has a strong presence in the tribal belt of Gujarat and BJP is looking for a strong leader in the region.