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Journalism of Courage
Ten lakh vote margin vs 10 lakh rupees. The lopsided battle for the Gandhinagar seat of Gujarat perhaps can’t be framed better than this.
If on the BJP side is Union Home Minister Amit Shah, looking for his second successive victory from the seat that the party has not lost since 1984, on the other is Sonal Patel, whose only electoral experience so far is the 2022 Assembly poll loss from Naranpura.
With Shah’s victory a given, the BJP’s target for Gandhinagar is ensuring that the party’s chief electoral strategist wins by no less than 10 lakh votes (double his 2019 margin). Patel, meanwhile, did not just plough a desolate furrow but also struggled to raise funds, with a donation drive raising – by her own admission – barely Rs 10 lakh.
Given Shah’s poll duties across the country, his family, including wife Sonalben, son Jay and daughter-in-law Rishita, did the heavy lifting in Gandhinagar, with the campaign wrapping up on Sunday.
Addressing a voter awareness campaign in the Bopal area of Ahmedabad, Jay exhorted the crowd: “Last time, only 52% of you in Bopal voted, and we got 98% of those votes. This time ensure that 85% of you vote. Will you do that?”
The 10 lakh target for Shah, 59, was set by Gujarat BJP president C R Paatil – a whopping 3 lakh votes more than the all-time high margin of 6.96 lakh votes, by which the BJP’s Pritam Munde won the Beed seat in Maharashtra in 2014. Paatil, who himself missed this record by a whisker in 2019, has now set a 5 lakh-margin target for 24 of the Gujarat seats and 10 lakh for Gandhinagar, with one seat (Surat) won uncontested.
Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, who represents the Ghatlodia Assembly segment falling within Gandhinagar, was among those who campaigned for Shah.
To get to the target in the Gandhinagar seat, which has 21.5 lakh voters, the BJP must register impressive wins in all seven of its Assembly segments.
In 2007, Shah had won one of these Assembly seats, Sarkhej, by 2.35 lakh votes, the highest in the state in that year’s polls. Shah also has an association with the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha seat going back years, having been the election manager for L K Advani when he was its MP. Advani won from Gandhinagar six times from 1991 to 2014, barring 1996, when another BJP luminary, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, contested from this seat, and won.
After becoming a Rajya Sabha MP in 2017, Shah contested for the first time from Gandhinagar in 2019, and won by 5.57 lakh votes, the biggest victory margin so far in the seat. Recently, he said, his margin this time “would be much higher”.
BJP chief spokesperson Gujarat Yamal Yyas told The Indian Express: “We have set the target because of the popularity of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, as well as the hard work of BJP workers… The BJP has been representing Gandhinagar for very long and all its MPs have strived to make it a model constituency, especially Amit Shah, with development projects of over Rs 22,000 crore.”
If Jay addressed mass meetings for Shah, and held sabhas with specific groups such as Patidars and Maldharis, Shah’s wife and daughter-in-law’s campaign focused on women.
Satish Patel, 50, the sarpanch of Ramnagar village in Gandhinagar district, said the women in Shah’s family are regular visitors, irrespective of polls. “They come, talk to villagers, address their issues.”
Rajeshkumar Shah, a resident of the same apartment complex in Naranpura area as Amit Shah, talked about a recent poll meeting at the society which was attended by Sonalben. “She keeps dropping in to meet old neighbours, particularly if there is an illness or death in a family.”
A party worker at the BJP office said: “Anyone in the entire Gandhinagar constituency can directly call or visit us if they have issues. Everything is documented, right from the complaint to its redressal.”
BJP leaders say Shah himself keeps track of what is happening, notwithstanding his busy portfolio.
But even if all this means that the Congress always had a Herculean task in Gandhinagar, many feel the party gave up without a fight in fielding Sonal Patel. Its earlier candidates from the seat have included former chief election commissioner T N Seshan and late superstar Rajesh Khanna.
Patel, 63, an architect and town planner, is the daughter of a former municipal councillor from Naranpura ward, and has held the post of AICC secretary and Gujarat Congress Mahila president. In 2022, she was among those who lost when the BJP swept all the seven Assembly seats falling under Gandhinagar.
Patel’s husband and son, also architects, pitched in for her campaign. She held rounds of the constituency and small meetings.
Patel says she tried to raise funds via crowd funding, but did not get an encouraging response. “People were perhaps scared to show their support on record. The collection wasn’t much, around Rs 10 lakh,” she told The Indian Express.
Patel has described the 10 lakh-vote margin target for Shah as impossible, pointing out that roughly 60% of the 21.5-lakh voters of Gandhinagar (or about 12.9 lakh) usually turn up to cast their ballot. “The target is not possible unless they mess with the EVMs,” she has said.
Including Shah and Patel, there are 14 candidates in the fray, even after withdrawal of 17. Those who withdrew included Independents, and candidates of parties such as the ‘Gunj Satya Ni Janata Party’, ‘Bhartiya Rashtriya Dal’ and ‘Aapki Awaaz Party’. Those who remain include the BSP’s Mohammedanish Desai, candidates of registered parties such as the ‘Right to Recall Party’, ‘Prajatantra Aadhar Party’, ‘Insaniyat Party’, and eight Independents.
Patel says that whatever the result on June 4, she doesn’t regret the experience. “Initially workers were sceptical given the 2022 results, but slowly people got receptive… My family members also tried to dissuade me from contesting against the Home Minister, but I told them, ‘Why not? Someone has to’.”
