Is there any basis for BJP's election jitters in Gujarat?

Apparently, the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) election strategy in Gujarat aims to break the record the Congress set under Madhavsinh Solanki in 1985, when it won 149 out of 182 seats in the legislature. Union Home Minister Amit Shah is more modest in claiming that his party would win Gujarat with a two-thirds majority (122 seats). Even this goal would far exceed its tally of 99 seats in 2017.

The anti-incumbency of 27 years – the BJP came to power in Gujarat in 1995 – was recognised by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah as early as September 2021, when they dismissed incumbent Chief Minister Vijay Rupani. A first-time legislator Bhupendra Patel was installed in his place, and his 24-member cabinet did not repeat a single minister from the previous one.

Normally Prime Minister Modi's election speeches centre on himself and his achievements. This time around, he has openly warned the voters against the campaigns of the Congress and newcomer Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). In a recent speech, he told Gujarat voters, "I want to warn you, Congress has made a new strategy. They are not in newspapers and social media. …Congress' new strategy is to go village by village and fill poison amongst villagers." While Congress leaders were holding "khatla baithaks" (meetings on cots) in villages, he claimed, the party had "outsourced" public confrontation to the AAP.

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The promise of freebies by AAP is getting enough traction in urban areas to make the BJP uncomfortable. Despite his ordeal with the Enforcement Directorate, when Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia went to Gujarat, he did not play the victim but instead promised: "shaandar schools" (smart schools) every four kilometres in the eight cities of Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Surat, Vadodara, Bhavnagar, Jamnagar, Junagadh and Gandhinagar. AAP has gone for the BJP's jugular by focusing on cities where the BJP got more than half of its 2017 assembly seats. Out of its 99 seats in 2017, 46 came from Rajkot, Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara. BJP functionaries have been reported in the media as being bothered by AAP's "non-traditional" challenge– vocal about everything and agile in its responses. This is despite the AAP campaign having no local face of good political standing. The two faces it has projected are better known for their nuisance, and the party has no rural face either.

Against this challenge, one might recall the debate against "revdi culture" begun by Prime Minister Modi, which has been willingly joined by the judiciary and the Election Commission, apparently in the interest of fiscal discipline. Given its financial condition, the government is unlikely to be able to promise any more freebies, and it wants its challengers to be prevented from playing this card.

Meanwhile, BJP's own state-wide "Gaurav Yatras" are reportedly not getting traction. Perhaps popular enthusiasm is diminished after barely emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic and being confronted with price rise, joblessness and agricultural distress. This could well result in a low voter turnout.

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Coincidentally, the Election Commission has recently introduced measures that would address this problem. It has announced the introduction of an "app-based" vote-from-home facility for senior citizens and the differently abled. It has also signed 233 Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with private companies to monitor the "electoral participation" of their workers in over 1,000 industrial units in the state and to publish the names of those who do not vote on their websites and office notice boards. This would keep tabs on voters without making voting compulsory and threatening them with naming and shaming.

Involving corporates in the electoral process has been criticised by the Opposition, with Communist leader Sitaram Yechury writing to the Chief Election Commissioner describing the MOUs as "outrageous" and a "coercive step towards compulsory voting." His letter to the CEC says, "Involving corporates in enforcing the right to vote as a fundamental duty is outright unconstitutional."

By delinking the state election in Gujarat once again from the Himachal Pradesh legislative elections, as in 2017, allows the government to announce more projects and investments in Gujarat. This goes against the party's strong espousal of "one-nation-one-poll" because the two-state assemblies expire just 40-days apart, and elections were held together in 1998, 2007 and 2012.

Had the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) come into force on October 15 when the HP polls were announced, the government would not have been able to make the Rs 5,500 crore investment announcements in Gujarat coinciding with DefExpo 2022, including the manufacture of an additional 100 K9 Vajra self-propelled artillery guns at Larsen and Toubro's Hajira facility and the setting up of an aviation manufacturing unit near Vadodara for the Tata-Airbus C295 transport aircraft. The DefExpo itself is being held across four locations in Gujarat, accompanied by spectacles, including "drone shows" in Gandhinagar and daily public events at the Sabarmati Riverfront, as well as public visits to ships at Porbandar port.

The postponement of the MCC has also allowed the prime minister to lay the foundation stone of a new Indian Air Force base at Deesa in the Banaskantha district of the state, which would be established with an investment of Rs 1,000 crore by 2024. All these announcements are quite apart from development projects worth Rs 14,500 crore announced by Prime Minister Modi during his state visit between October 9 and 12 to Gujarat.

A cynical observer of the Gujarat electoral preparations by the BJP remarked, "If it were possible to shift the Red Fort to Gujarat before the elections, the BJP would do it." Veteran political observers of the Gujarat scene claim that not much should be read into the various electoral announcements as the party fights every election like it were its last battle; and that it has nothing to be insecure about.

Why then is the prime minister announcing a "Rozgar Mela" to hand over employment letters to 75,000 youngsters for government jobs nationally before Diwali? The Gujarat election dates are expected to be announced after Diwali.

(Bharat Bhushan is a journalist based in Delhi)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.