Voter apathy, rebellion force BJP to alter Gujarat poll plan

According to a CSDS survey, anger over price rise and the lack of jobs has persisted despite the intensive campaigning by BJP

With the first phase of polling inching closer, the BJP has amended its poll math and rhetoric in Gujarat, asking its party workers to ensure that the voter turnout stays above 42% in the polling booths under their charge.

They also have to appeal to people not to vote NOTA (none of the above).

In 2017, on 22 seats, the margin of victory or defeat of BJP candidates was less than the number of NOTA votes. Party panna pramukhs and polling booth in-charges have also been asked to keep an eye out on voter turnout if it were to cross 70% in their area, for that could ring the alarm bells of a vote for change.

Voter apathy (as most expect the BJP to return to power) and rebellion in a fourth of the 182 seats (the BJP denied tickets to 42 sitting legislators, or where it has fielded Congress imports) are two crucial factors for revised battleplans.

“I don’t remember the last time the gates of Kamalam (the BJP office) in Gandhinagar were shut because of protests by party workers,” a party leader said. With several candidates changed, workers have struggled to get people to attend public meetings of the BJP bigwigs.

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According to a CSDS survey, anger over price rise and the lack of jobs has persisted despite the intensive campaigning by PM Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath.

Party workers are rattled that AAP’s popularity has surged even among pro-BJP communities, particularly the youth.

“AAP and Arvind Kejriwal are liars,” shot back Divya Patel, BJP’s Gandhinagar South vice president, when asked about the condition of government schools and hospitals in Gujarat.

Her reaction is now typical of how BJP workers are mostly dismissive of any mention of the Congress but virulently attack any mention of the AAP, while the top leadership focuses its speeches attacking the Congress to suggest the fight is BJP versus Congress.

The BJP’s top leadership is confident the party would better its 2017 Assembly polls tally of 99 seats, which was its lowest tally of all its six successive wins since 1995.

However, it is no longer confident of achieving its initial target of winning 151 or even 127 seats, its best showing under Narendra Modi in 2002. The BJP, despite Modi’s two-decade-long dominance of Gujarat politics, is yet to beat the record of 149 seats set by Madhavsinh Solanki-led Congress in 1985.

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The BJP’s political pitch has turned to the plank of Gujarati asmita, or pride, with Modi and Amit Shah as its symbols, and how it has ensured peace while Congress supports rioters and terrorists.

There is little talk of the ‘Gujarat development model’, a plank on which it had started the election campaign, with the PM inaugurating a series of infrastructure projects in the last couple of months.

It is possible, says psephologist Sanjay Kumar, that the BJP’s vote share — which has hovered around 49 per cent — could drop in 2022, but it could still win substantial seats because of the split in anti-government votes between Congress and AAP. Political observers in Gujarat are also intrigued by the insipid campaigns of not just the Congress, but lately of the AAP as well.