It’s an irony of sorts that one of the most lacklustre elections in Gujarat has churned out a result that shows several paradigm shifts.
Gujarat CM Narendra Modi managed to improve — though just by a token seat — the BJP tally in Gujarat, irrespective of this party’s phenomenal fall elsewhere in the country.
But what must surely hurt the man, who many in the BJP hail as future prime minister, is that his experiment with selecting young candidates only had partial success. This is likely to dent his credentials and his plan to move to Delhi.
The Congress has much to worry about. It has won 11 seats, less than the 12 it got in 2004. But the real bad news is that its union ministers Shankersinh Vaghela and Naran Rathwa lost. So has the Congress’ chief whip in the LS, Madhusudan Mistry.
Modi’s decision to nominate fresh faces has partially failed, as only eight of them won from the 15 fielded. Another gamble that failed was to field candidates with criminal background and Congress turncoats.
The biggest blow comes from the BJP stronghold in Saurashtra, where the Congress won four of the seven seats. The real slap in the face was the Congress victory in Gujarat Rajkot, a constituency where the BJP has never lost. The young, rich and Kadva Patel BJP candidate Kiran Patel, who had all the credentials to win, lost to the Congress’ Koli Patel candidate, Kunvarji Bavaliya.
The primary reasons being attributed for the BJP’s not-so-good win is removal of popular BJP leader Dr Vallabh Kathiriya, arrest of Bavaliya earlier in the year, the rape and murder of a Koli Patel girl Chandani, and the disenchantment of Saurashtra strongman and former chief minister Keshubhai Patel.
LK Advani suffered the humiliation of seeing his victory margin come down to 1.21 lakh from 2.17 lakh in 2004. The victory margins have come down across all seats for both, indicating that some core BJP supporters are moving away.
If there is any message that this election has given out in Gujarat is that the good governance and the competence of a prime minister far outweigh communal, emotional and sentimental issues, particularly when the country is facing recession. In absence of a Hindutva wave, issues like terrorism and personal attacks have had little impact.
