Gujarat polls 2022: Five things AAP will be looking at

The city where AAP launched itself as the main opposition in the municipal corporation elections in 2021, is also where the party has the maximum stakes, fielding its state president Gopal Italia and general secretary Manoj Sorathiya. Its two other strong candidates are Alpesh Kathiriya, who is also convenor of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) that led the quota agitation of 2015-16, and Dharmik Malaviya, who heads the Surat unit of the influential Khodaldham Trust. All of them are Patidar migrants from Saurashtra. Surat city, which has 12 seats, has long been a BJP bastion. Any gains by the AAP would expose a chink in the BJP armour, given that it is home to state chief C R Paatil. It is also a city where Modi spent much time even before the campaigning started, launching projects and engaging with people through video conferencing.

2. Saurashtra

Since 1962, when the Congress ruled Gujarat after the first election held in the wake of the bifurcation of the Bombay state, any party that has found favour in this region has been able to launch itself across the state. This would hold true for the AAP as well. Supremo Arvind Kejriwal has held several public rallies in this region, spending more time in Rajkot, the heart of Saurashtra. However, Saurashtra is largely agrarian, and its voters are considered discerning. Whether the ‘urban’ AAP, which has been tagged as an “outsider” here, appeals to the region, remains to be seen.

3. Guarantees

The AAP’s guarantees, although criticised as ‘revdis (freebies)’ by the BJP, have found some traction among a section of the Gujarati electorate that has been reeling under the strains of the Covid lockdown, price rise and joblessness. In his rallies, Kejriwal also gave out a timeline by when the guarantees would be fulfilled, and countered the BJP’s jibe about them overshooting the state budget by saying the money “saved from corruption” would be spent on fulfilling these guarantees. Whether this converts into votes remains to be seen, given that the ruling BJP government also made some populist announcements just before the elections were announced, ostensibly in an effort to counter the AAP’s guarantees.

4. Vote share

In a first-past-the post system, how many seats the AAP wins will be just as important as the vote share it manages to get in Gujarat, as that will decide its strength as an Opposition party. It will also decide its eligibiity for the status of a national party. Exit polls have forecast a 15-20 per cent vote share for the party.
In 2017, the party contested on just 29 seats and got 0.1 per cent of the vote share. To put that in perspective, Keshubhai Patel’s Gujarat Parivartan Party contested on 167 seats and got only 3.63 per cent of the votes in 2012, but won two seats. In 1998, the Shankersinh Vaghela-led Rashtriya Janata Party won four seats of the 168 it contested and got 12.57 per cent votes.

5. Youth vote

Given that nearly half the Gujarat electorate is less than 40 years of age, the election will also put to test what this segment wants, especially considering that it has only seen the BJP in power in Gujarat, and a feeble Opposition in the Congress. In an election that is largely caste driven and has seen the BJP and the Congress micro-manage castes in its ticket distribution, how the young voter takes to the AAP’s bold moves in picking candidates who are young or come from youth-driven movements like the quota agitation, and its promises of jobs, healthcare and education, remains to be seen.