The intriguing chain of events in Gujarat

Mevani's arrest has provided Congress with a tailormade issue for Dalit mobilisation in Gujarat

Seemingly meaningless coincidences often carry masterfully scripted calculations.

So a Congress supporting Dalit legislator from Gujarat, Jignesh Mevani, finds himself whisked away to far-off Assam in a midnight operation usually reserved for terror suspects, while another high profile party colleague, Hardik Patel, becomes a self-invited target of a 'will he, won't he' speculative exercise hinting at defection/departure for greener pastures. A similar exercise concerning cat's whiskers poll strategist Prashant Kishor reaches a high point at the national level before winding down into nothingness. Standing in the eye of this raging storm is the Indian National Congress, down but still not out. It accounts for the second-highest number of legislators in the country, 750 to the BJPs 1,400.

Ridiculing the Congress at every point and turn, yet even after a quarter-century of ruling Gujarat, why does the Narendra Modi-led Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) still get goosebumps every time elections draw near? Led by the PM down the vertical governance grid and the J P Nadda-headed party pyramid, all roads from Delhi now lead to Gujarat amidst heightened media speculation of early elections. To add to the confusion, the Election Commission has cut short the barely year-long tenure of Gujarat Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Anupam Anand and replaced him with P Bharathi, five years his junior, to conduct the ensuing polls. Anand's predecessor S Murali Krishna enjoyed a three-year stint.

Also Read — Himanta Sarma should resign taking moral responsibility after police get court rap: Congress

Its belly bloated with Congress flotsam and jetsam in pursuit of the avowed goal of Congress-free India, a bulging BJP is busy laying the chessboard afresh for the Gujarat Assembly elections due later this year. And this is where the Congress opposition and its emerging youth leaders raise the heckles of the ruling strategists.

Firebrand Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani, a Congress supported independent legislator from the Vadgam constituency of north Gujarat, was picked up in the dead of April 21 night from his constituency by the Assam Police, brought to Ahmedabad and flown to Assam. Aided by the Gujarat Police, his office, home and those of his associates were rummaged, mobiles confiscated, and computers seized. His offence was that he had tweeted against the prime minister on April 18, and an executive member of the Bodoland Territorial Council had lodged a complaint with the Kokrajhar police station on April 19. The action was lightning swift. Loosely translated, the tweet read, "Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who worships Godse, is on a tour of Gujarat from April 20. I urge him to appeal for peace and brotherhood in the communal incident that affected Himmatnagar, Khambhat and Veraval towns. This is the least that one can hope from one who built the Mahatma Mandir."

Mevani was produced in court where the police sought 13 days remand, was given three and at the end of which, filed another FIR, this time of assaulting a woman cop while being brought from Guwahati airport to Kokrajhar on April 21 and taken on another five days remand. While granting bail to Mevani a second time, the court had harsh words for the Assam Police. A "false FIR" in a "manufactured case", ruled Judge Aparesh Chakravarty, pointing out that no sane person will ever try to outrage the modesty of a lady police officer in the presence of two male police officers in a moving vehicle, and there is nothing in the record to hold that the accused is an insane person. The judge requested the Gauhati High Court to stop cops from turning Assam into a police state.

Also Read — 'False FIR, manufactured case..': What Assam court said about Jignesh Mevani's case

Why would Assam turn the full force of its ire on an independent legislator from a distant land? Assam is a BJP-ruled state, as is Gujarat, which additionally is also the homeland of the prime minister and the Union home minister. Interestingly, while the Dalit leader was in the custody of the Assam Police, the Gujarat BJP president, C R Patil, was busy welcoming Manibhai Vaghela, a former Congress leader from Mevani's constituency, into the BJP at a well-publicised function.

So what could be common between Jignesh Mevani, the Dalit leader, and Hardik Patel, the working president of the Gujarat Congress, who has also been in the crosshairs of the BJP for long?

Both had their baptism in politics through agitational fire. Along with young OBC leader Alpesh Thakore, the two constituted a triumvirate which was also a Congress caste phalanx of Patidars, Dalits and OBCs that had rocked the BJP boat rather violently in the 2017 Assembly elections. The BJP was reduced to its lowest tally of 99 seats in a 182-member House ever since Modi took over as chief minister in 2001. Months earlier, the three had proved to be the nemesis of the Anandiben Patel government, leading to her replacement in August 2016. However, she was rehabilitated as the governor of neighbouring Madhya Pradesh and later shifted to Uttar Pradesh. Anandiben Patel had replaced Modi as chief minister when the latter took over as the prime minister in 2014 and was herself replaced by Amit Shah's confidante Vijay Rupani, who has since given way to Bhupendra Patel at the head of a spanking new cabinet recently.

Jignesh shot into the limelight when he took up the cause of seven members of a Dalit family who were flogged for skinning a dead cow in Una, Saurashtra region of Gujarat, in July 2016, and the incident snowballed into statewide protests. Technically an independent legislator, he is one of the fast-rising stars of the Congress and will formally join the party before the polls. Though Alpesh Thakore, appointed national secretary, shifted to the BJP before the 2019 national elections, Hardik Patel persevered and was made the working president of the state unit. Young Patel recently got nervy when there were talks of Khodaldham trust head Naresh Patel joining the Congress as a chief ministerial candidate on the recommendations of Prashant Kishor. The BJP took this opportunity to fish in the troubled waters of the Congress, but the latter initiated damage control measures saving the day.

Mevani's arrest could not have come at a better time for the Congress. It has provided a tailormade issue for Dalit mobilisation, and his Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch (RDAM) has grabbed the opportunity with both hands. "It was a conspiracy hatched by the BJP, but such intimidatory tactics will not deter me from carrying on my fight against the 'anti-people' policies of Prime Minister Modi, the BJP and the RSS," Mevani said after his release from custody.

But despite the gradually falling tally of the ruling BJP from election to election and the likelihood of the Aam Admi Party (AAP) making inroads into the BJP's hitherto impregnable urban bastions, it is a tough grind ahead for the Congress in Gujarat. The last time the Congress was elected to power in Gujarat was in 1985, when Madhavsinh Solanki set a record that remains unbroken, bagging 149 of the 182 seats. But then thirty-seven years is a long time in history, and the journey out of an abyss is never easy.

(R K Misra is a senior journalist based in Ahmedabad)

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