At least two exit polls predicted victory for the BJP in the Gujarat elections. While it isn’t over until the last vote has been counted, Dur-e-Shahwar, a housewife in Ahmedabad, holds some clues to the Congress’s performance. And it isn’t easy listening for the party.Shahwar is the sister of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, who was burnt alive inside his flat in Gulbarg Society on February 28. ‘‘He called every Congress leader, even Soniaji, but nobody came to his help. Two months later, our house too was attacked. We even spotted Congressmen in the mob that was trying to break in and kill us,’’ she told The Indian Express.Her husband, Jallan Matri, observed that ‘‘the BJP does it openly and also takes pride in it. The Congress is a bit different because they don’t say it openly. Otherwise it is one and the same.’’Matri, a retired government official and a Gujarati poet, scorned the faith the Congress reposed in ex-BJP leader Shankersinh Vaghela. ‘‘He worked for 27 years to make the BJP what it is in Gujarat today. Now, he’s being projected as our saviour! I don’t think ideologies can change so suddenly,’’ he said.Matri felt that the Congress wasn’t interested in addressing the post-Godhra violence since Muslims don’t have the numbers in the state. ‘‘This (the post February 27 riots) was an extreme case, but it’s happened earlier too. Jafri’s house was gutted in the 1969 riots as well; he and his family survived only because they were not there. This happened under a Congress government. Even our house, then in Krishnanagar housing colony in Saijpur Moga, was gutted,’’ he said. ‘‘For us, there is no choice.’’The refrain that the Congress is the ‘‘lesser of two evils’’ can be heard in Naroda Patiya too, which did vote en bloc for the party, but only because it was in opposition to the BJP. ‘‘There’s hardly any difference between Narendra Modi and Vaghela. Modi believes that he will get support only by calling us Pakistanis and giving a licence to kill us, while Vaghela has turned the Congress into a softer BJP,’’ said Mohammad Farooq Khan, a teacher. ‘‘The only reason I want the Congress to win is when they’re in power, they will at least feel embarrassed to allow the police to join the mobs.’’That the Congress didn’t flat-out counter the BJP’s stridently saffron campaign but, instead, attempted to keep the Hindu vote in its pocket as well didn’t fool too many voters. ‘‘They didn’t take on Modi for what had happened to us, they even kept their distance. Even during the rallies, they were careful not to attack those who destroyed our lives. They knew Muslims had no choice, and didn’t want to appear sympathetic to us,’’ Mohammad Rouf, a 60-year-old who lost three of his family members in the riots, said.It is an irony of politics that a few thousand miles away in Jammu and Kashmir, the Congress stunned all Valley watchers by pushing a stance perceived as being even more pro-Kashmiri Muslim than the National Conference. Sonia Gandhi came to the Valley to campaign for her party, promised to start an unconditional dialogue with separatists and put her seal to a controversial common minimum programme. But the man who led the Congress to victory in J&K—Ghulam Nabi Azad—wasn’t among the hordes of Congress worthies campaigning in Gujarat.An elderly resident of Raikhad Darwaza, who didn’t wanted to be named, summed up what he called was the ‘‘tragedy’’ of what once a secular party in Gujarat: ‘‘earlier, we would see the hardliners from the Congress leaving for parties like the BJP. Today, softer BJP leaders make up the Congress party.’’
