Victory takes load off CM

But the chief minister has another, more personal, reason. Before the elections, Patel had been facing serious problems, within the party as well as outside. So much so that there was common talk that Patel’s days as chief minister were numbered. Names of his possible successors were being bandied about.

Emboldened by the price rise, deteriorating law and order, and attacks on minorities, the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Party (RJP), which supported Janata Dal candidate Chhotubhai Vasava in the elections, were becoming increasingly aggressive. Worsted in Bharuch, they are now licking their wounds.

More damaging for the chief minister was the unhappiness within the BJP over his style of functioning. While Food & Civil Supplies Minister Jaspal Singh dropped enough hints that Patel was hand-in-glove with the oil millers who had artificially jacked up prices, Industry Minister Suresh Mehta resigned after accusing Patel of doing nothing to arrest the killers of one his supporters.

The victory in Bharuch has changed all. Commented a Patel rival, “Bharuch has washed the chief minister’s sins. No one can now ask for his removal in near future.” Equally significant for Patel is the BJP defeat in Madhya Pradesh, where the party’s national general secretary Narendra Modi was the campaign manager.

Modi was regarded as the “power behind the throne” when Patel first became the chief minister in 1995. But later, the two drifted apart. Given Modi’s clout at the national level, the Patel camp was always apprehensive about Modi’s intentions. With the MP debacle having dented Modi’s image, Patel can now relax.

In the opinion of Dinesh Shukla, a political analyst, the victory in Bharuch had given Patel “much-needed breathing space”. Patel had, so far, “shown little leadership qualities or administrative capabilities”, Shukla said. “This is an opportunity for him to make amends”.

How has the BJP won in spite of Patel’s alleged sins? The chief minister gave credit for the victory to his partymen, who he said campaigned unitedly. From corporators to ministers, everybody was pressed into the campaign. At the same time, Patel is not modest to deny himself the credit for countering the “opposition’s initial success with its negative propaganda”.

“I had to go there. I spent four days, and addressed 21 public meetings. We launched an aggressive campaign to counter the opposition’s negative propaganda about onions and potatoes. We told the voters what all we had done in eight months. And it paid off,” Patel explained.

But Congress general secretary and former deputy chief minister Narhari Amin alleged that the BJP whipped up communal sentiments by exploiting the fact that the Congress candidate was a Muslim. “They poisoned the atmosphere,” Amin said.

However, Patel said the boot was on the other leg. “In Muslim areas like Amod and Jambusar, they told the people that Kakuji belonged to their own community and, therefore, they should vote for him,” Patel charged. “We highlighted this, and asked the Muslims to think whether this was the right approach,” he said.

The BJP also raised fears of a Christian domination by harping on alleged forcible conversions by missionaries in the Adivasi belt. “While the propaganda against Muslims damaged the Congress, the propaganda against the missionaries damaged the Janata Dal candidate who had his base in the tribal areas,” said Achyut Yagnik, a social activist.

The BJP was, thus, damaging both the Congress and the Janata Dal. But the two opposition parties were actually cutting into each others votes. For, both the Congress and the Janata Dal had the same support base: Muslims, Adivasis and OBCs. Together, they polled about one lakh more votes than the BJP.