Parliamentary elections 2014: South and Central Gujarat

Parliamentary elections 2014

South and Central Gujarat

By Deepak Parvatiyar

(This article was published in all editions of Marathi daily Pudhari on 28th March 2014)

http://epaper.pudhari.com/details.aspx?ID=450808&boxid=21322619&pgno=10&u_name=0

Can Narendra Modi’s candidature from Vadodara this election swing the tide in favour of the BJP and can the lotus repeat its performance of 1999 –the party’s best ever performance in Gujarat when it won 20 of the 26 parliamentary seats in Gujarat?

The BJP feels that Modi’s candidature from Vadodara is bound to have an impact in four-five nearby constituencies in tribal and central Gujarat – traditionally the Congress bastions. The Congress expects a good return here. Not surprising therefore that the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi chose to launch a strong attack on Modi from a massive public rally in this tribal-dominated region of South Gujarat in March this year.

Political observers feel that Modi’s tactical move to contest from Vadodara is like a double edged sword. Much like his candidature from Varanasi, which is being seen to reap a good harvest for the BJP from neighbouring Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh, his contest from Vadodara is being seen to make a dent into the Congress strongholds in Modi’s own backyard. If he delivers, Modi will be eulogised. If he fails, his influence will diminish even if he himself wins from Vadodara.

Central Gujarat consists of seven Lok Sabha constituencies -- Anand, Bharuch, Chotta Udaipur, Dohad, Godhra, Kaira and Vadodara. They were all traditionally Congress strongholds till 1990s. The Congress won six out of seven seats in 1996, leaving only the Bharuch seat for the BJP. In 1998 it lost one more, Vadodara, to the BJP and in 1999, it also lost the Anand seat to the BJP. However, fortunes slightly changed for the Congress once again since 2004 when it regained Anand and Chhota Udaipur in Central Gujarat and Bulsar (Valsad) and Mandvi in South Gujarat. (As a part of the implementation of delimitation of parliamentary constituencies, Mandvi became part of Bardoli parliamentary constituency in 2008). The tribal dominated South Gujarat has three parliamentary constituencies – Bulsar(Valsad),  Bardoli and Surat.  Bharat Solanki – son of Madhavsinh Solanki – retained the Anand seat in 2009 and is again a formidable candidate from there this election. Similarly, Tushar Chaudhary – son of former Congress Chief Minister late Amarsinh Chaudhary – won the Mandvi seat in 2004 and then again won from Bardoli in 2009 after the new seat replaced Mandvi after the delimitation. He too is a formidable candidate this election.

In fact in 2009, the Congress, despite losing Chhota Udaipur, had won Dahod and Bardoli and retained Bulsar besides Anand, Bardoli (formerly Mandvi) and Kaira.

A point to be noted is that all these years though, the invincible Dinsha Patel kept the Congress flag flying high in Kaira. Ironically, Patel is a reluctant contestant this election. Reportedly he was not interested to contest this time. Moreover, the delimitation of seats too have affected the political arithmetic in the constituency, making it a keenly contested battle between Patel and the BJP’s Debusinh Chauhan in Kaira. 

Yet the biggest contest in the region is that of the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. He seems unassailable in Vadodara – seen as a BJP bastion with the party having won successive elections there since 1998. Balkrishna Shukla, who won the seat by a huge margin of over 136,000 votes in 2009, made way for Modi to contest in the April-May general election.

Modi’s rival is Congress general secretary Madhusudan Mistry – a Rahul Gandhi confidante who was introduced to politics by the Congress’s leader of the opposition in Gujarat Assembly and a former chief minister, Shankarsinh Vaghela. Mistry was inducted as the president of Rashtriya Janata Party that Vaghela had formed after quitting the BJP in the mid-nineties.

Mistry is considered to have a good influence in the tribal belt. Scheduled castes and tribes constitute more than the half the electorate in the region. Many locals have tried to interpret his action of climbing to replace the posters of Modi with his as a way to prove that his silver hair cannot undermine his youthfulness and energy levels.

Yet, considering the drama unfolded before Mistry’s  nomination for the seat – he was not the original Congress choice but had to be fielded after  Narendra Kumar Rawat, the Congress’s earlier choice after the much touted ‘primary’, withdrew from the race – the going seems tough for the suave confidante of Rahul Gandhi. A fact that that as many as five Congress MLAs defected to the BJP, reducing the party’s tally to 52 in the 182-member assembly, too contributes to the BJP’s confidence this election.

Significantly, the Aam Admi Party, whose founder Arvind Kejriwal is in the fray against Modi in Varanasi, has fielded a relatively unknown Sunil Digambar Kulkarni against the Gujarat chief minister in Vadodara. Reports that Kulkarni is a bank defaulter, too doesnot help AAP in this crucial constituency.

Besides Vadodara, Ahmedabad East is another constituency which offers colour following the nomination of film star Paresh Rawal as the BJP candidate. That Rawal is fielded in place of veteran MP Harin Pathak, said to be close to party patriarch LK Advani, has raised many eyebrows even within the saffron brigade. He is contesting against the Congress’s Himmatsinh Patel.

With much in stake in south and central Gujarat for the BJP, it is important for Modi to conjure up the sense of Gujarati pride to win votes in the region to wield his authority on the national politics. The state BJP has no doubts though as it feels that already there is a lot of excitement among six crore Gujaratis over the prospect of a person from Gujarat becoming the prime minister of the country. Indeed the region holds the key!