Camps ready, but logic is fuzzy

People recall only sporadic violence, as in the region8217;s main urban centre, Rajkot. Yet, in 2002, when the BJP won Saurashtra again, taking 39 of the 58 seats8212;its tally had come down from 50 in 1998 8212; it was perceived to be a fallout of the communal polarisation that was stoked and deepened elsewhere in the state. But this year, in an election in which Hindutva wasn8217;t till recently an overriding issue, the boast in Rajkot is that Saurashtra will take the lead, not follow it.

8220;It is the epicentre of Gujarat8217;s politics,8221; says a confident Hukabhai Patel, president, Saurashtra Oil Mills Association, in his plush office in the Rajkot District Cooperative Bank.

With elections only a few days away, come to Saurashtra to meet the possibilities of that claim 8212; and its possible limits.

Hukabhai Patel is associated with the Sardar Patel Utkarsh Samiti, the front floated months before the election with the ostensible aim of uniting the caste community of the BJP8217;s foremost rebel, Keshubhai Patel. But his promise that Saurashtra will determine who rules in Gandhinagar includes two other factors apart from the Patel factor: It also banks on never-before efforts to mobilise the backward caste Kolis as a self-conscious vote bank and the proliferation of BJP rebels.

The rebel factor is actually another name for the Patel factor 8212;it8217;s the same cast of characters. Of the BJP8217;s rebels in Saurashtra, all except one are Patels, more specifically Leuva Patels.

BJP MP from Rajkot, Dr Vallabhbhai Katheria, a Leuva Patel and a known BJP dissident, personifies this overlap. And its continuing political ambivalence. 8220;I am still in the BJP,8221; insists Katheria, minutes before he shares the stage with the sitting Congress MLA, Vitthalbhai Radadiya, at an evening meeting with local industrialists organised under the aegis of the Sardar Patel Utkarsh Samiti.

8220;Our fight is to cleanse the BJP from within. Right now that means Modi should be defeated. He has sidelined all the good people in the party. He is a law unto himself. If the Congress gains from our fight, so be it. I am a cancer surgeon, I want to root out the BJP8217;s cancer,8221; he says.

If Katheria doesn8217;t want to call his politics by its name, he is only taking the cue from his professed leader Keshubhai, who famously stayed away from the Patidar Sammelan in Surat earlier. Keshubhai has mentioned Modi by name only a few days ago. Ask about the Samiti8217;s agenda, and you come up against a similar fuzziness. Is it only about the humiliation of Keshubhai? Is it a demand for proportional representation in positions of power for the Leuva Patels? Or, a platform for farmers8217; concerns 8211; Leuva Patels are mostly farmers and many feel the community has been unfairly singled out by the Modi government in cases of power theft.

A lack of clarity could be a necessary conceit for a political mobilization that, at worst, could remain an essentially one-caste show, or a one-sub-caste show: The Leuva Patels overwhelmingly dominate the Utkarsh Samiti, while the Kadva Patels, perceived to be patronised by Modi, stay away.

But the several ambiguities in the Patel mobilisation in Saurashtra also refelect a general political ambivalence in opposing Modi in Saurashtra. Here, the Congress hopes to fight the chief minister primarily on the back of his rebels. Four BJP rebels have been handed Congress tickets in Saurashtra. Many others like Goradhan Zadaphia, the riot-tainted former home minister in the Modi cabinet, openly lobby for the Congress under the aegis of the Utkarsh Samiti.

Of the Congress candidates who are not rebels, a large number have RSS roots. Like Rajkot MLA Vithalbhai Raderia. And Kashmira Nathwani, daughter of Chiman Shukla, credited with founding the Jan Sangh in the region. Nathwani is pitted against the No. 2 in the Modi cabinet, Vajubhai Vala, from Rajkot.

The Koli mobilisation is said to be in favour of the Congress and many of its leaders have even managed to get tickets, but their issues are harder to specify. In his home on the outskirts of Ahmedabad district, Somabhai Patel, Koli leader and BJP MP from Saurashtra8217;s Surendranagar district is most agitated about his personal humiliation at the hands of Modi: 8220;I was made to wait for hours to meet him, and this after I have worked for the BJP and Jan Sangh for 47 years.8221; Prod him further and he talks of Modi8217;s opportunistic retreat from a 8220;real8221; Hindutva.

In Saurashtra, then, where routine anti-incumbency could be neutralised by a drought-free last few years, the contest can be framed thus: the clarity of Modi8212;his campaign main theme of 8220;only Modi8217;8212;is pitted against the several shades of his opposition.

Are the opposition8217;s ambiguities strategic? Many argue, for instance, that they are the only recourse for a party like the Congress that is often indistinguishable from the BJP in Gujarat.

What can be said with more certainty is this: Even if the Congress were to defeat the BJP in Saurashtra, it holds out little promise of alternative politics in Gujarat, at least in the near term.

SAURASHTRA / KUTCH 58 seats

The region includes the districts of Kutch, Surendranagar, Rajkot, Jamnagar, Porbandar, Junagadh, Amreli, and Bhavnagar. Cotton and groundnut are its main agriproducts, with new industrial zones in Kutch, Jamnagar, and Rajkot. Saurashtra is overwhelmingly rural with only 10 constituencies with urban votes of significance.

The region would mark a regression for the BJP with Patel and Koli rebellion against Modi centred in the rural districts. Sardar Patel Utkarsh Samiti, the Patidar body at the vanguard of anti-Modi rebellion, draws its sustenance from here. Last month, Keshubhai said the Congress could get 45 seats in the region.