Tags:
Journalism of Courage
In a quick turnaround from its resurgence in the Saurashtra-Kutch region that had given the ruling BJP a mighty scare five years ago, the Congress bit the dust, managing to win only three out of 54 seats in the 2022 Assembly elections, whose results were announced on Thursday. The agrarian region saw a near clean sweep by the ruling party.
In the 2017 Assembly election, which was held in the backdrop of the Patidar quota stir, the Congress had doubled its tally in Saurashtra-Kutch to 30, while the BJP’s total had shrunk to 23. Thanks to its rally in Saurashtra — a region dominated by Patidar voters — the Congress had managed to win 77 seats in the state while reducing the BJP to 99, just marginally above the halfway mark.
But in 2022, the Congress lost 28 of those seats while managing to snatch one from the BJP. If losing so many seats it had won in 2017 was not enough, the Congress rout was completed by new entrants Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which wrested two seats — Visavadar and Jamjodhpur — from the Congress. Thanks to its abysmal performance, the Congress was relegated to third spot in the region, after the BJP’s 47 and the AAP’s 4.
This is the Congress’s worst showing in Saurashtra, beating its previous low of six seats in 1998.
Of the 30 Congress candidates who had won in 2017, 11 later quit to join the BJP or to extend support to it. Of the remaining 19 MLAs, 18 were given tickets by the party to seek reelection. But only Vimal Chudasama could retain his seat from Somnath. The only solace for the party was that its senior leader Arjun Modhwadia made a comeback after 10 years, when he defeated his arch rival and sitting BJP MLA Babu Bokhiria from Porbandar, while Arvind Ladani won from Manavadar, beating Jawahar Chavda, who had won in 2017 on a Congress ticket, only to defect to the BJP in 2019, winning the subsequent bypoll to become a minister in the Vijay Rupani government.
All other big faces of the grand old party suffered heavy losses at the hands of the BJP. Paresh Dhanani, the Patidar face on whom Congress had been betting big since 2012, and who was virtually the leader of the party’s 2017 Assembly and 2019 Lok Sabha campaigns, lost his Amreli seat to BJP’s Kaushik Vekariya by 46,657 votes. Dhanani, who had won Amreli in 2012 and 2017, and was the Leader of the Opposition till 2019, was seeking a third straight term from this seat dominated by Patidar voters.
Similarly, Lalit Kagathara, Ambarish Der and Rutvik Makwana, the three working presidents of the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) from Saurashtra, lost their respective seats of Tanakara, Rajula and Chotila. Lalit Vasoya, the sitting MLA from Dhoraji, who had mobilised Patidars in the run-up to the 2017 Assembly election for his successful electoral debut, was beaten by Prof Mahendra Padalia of the BJP. Punja Vansh, a six-time MLA who was contesting his eighth Assembly election in a row from Una, lost to his arch rival Kalu Rathod of the BJP. Before Thursday, Vansh’s only defeat had come in 2007 at the hands of the same BJP rival.
The Congress was wiped out from nine of Saurashtra-Kutch’s 12 districts. It could not open its account in Kutch (6 seats), Surendranagar (5), Morbi (3), Jamnagar (5), Rajkot (8), Devbhumi Dwarka (2), Amreli (5), Bhavnagar (7) and Botad (2) districts. The party, which has remained in opposition for almost three decades in Gujarat, lost big in the OBC-dominated Gir Somnath district too, managing to retain only one out of four seats it had won in 2017. The Congress had swept all seats in Amreli, Gir Somnath and Morbi in 2017, reducing the BJP to 23 seats from the 36 it had won in 2012.
The party also lost Abdasa, Wankaner and Mangrol, considered the safest seats for the Congress in the region, as sitting MLAs Mahamadjavid Pirzada and Babu Vaja failed to retain Wankaner and Mangrol, respectively, while Mamad Jat couldn’t unseat Congress turncoat Pradyumansinh Jadeja in Abdasa.
The humiliating defeat came on the back of a lacklustre and indifferent poll campaign bereft of any centralised and concerted messaging. Save a rally addressed by Rahul Gandhi in Rajkot, party candidates were mostly left to fend for themselves.
On the other hand, it was a saffron festival for the BJP which posted victory flags in almost all corners of the state. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had himself led the BJP campaign, addressing election meetings in Rajkot, Gir Somnath, Amreli, Bhavnagar, Botad, Surendranagar, Jamnagar and Kutch, after the poll schedule was announced on November 3. At every public meeting, Modi would remind the crowd how Saurashtra used to see an exodus of people for want of water, and how the BJP government, he claimed, has changed that by bringing Narmada waters to Saurashtra via the Narmada canals and the SAUNI (Saurashtra Narmada Avtaran Irrigation) project.
Jawahar Chavda from Manavadar and Keshubhai Nakrani from Gariyadhar were the only big BJP faces to lose. Darshita Shah, the deputy mayor of Rajkot, who was contesting in place of former CM Vijay Rupani after the latter opted out from the contest in Rajkot West, set the trend for BJP victories by winning the prestigious seat by over 1.05 lakh votes. BJP pocketed all seats in Rajkot, Morbi, Surendranagar, Bhavnagar, Devbhumi Dwarka, Amreli and Kutch districts.
Among prominent BJP winners were Education Minister Jitu Vaghani, Agriculture Minister Raghavji Patel, Forest and Environment Minister Kiritsinh Rana, former ministers Kunvarji Bavaliya and Jayesh Radadiya, Kantilal Amrutiya from Morbi, cricketer Ravindra Jadeja’s wife Rivaba Jadeja, et al.
Even as the Congress sank, the AAP made a few sparks by winning Botad, Gariadhar, Visavadar and Jamjodhpur seats. AAP’s Umesh Makwana defeated Ghanshyam Virani of the BJP in Botad, while Sudhir Vaghani defeated sitting BJP MLA Keshu Nakrani from Gariadhar. In Visavadar, Bhupendra Bhayani defeated both the Congress turncoat MLA Harshad Ribadiya and the Congress’s official candidate Karshan Vadodariya. In Jamjodhpur, Hemant Khava defeated sitting Congress MLA Chirag Kalariya and former minister Chiman Sapariya of the BJP. However, its CM face Isudan Gadhvi lost from Khambhalia.
Lalit Kagathara of the Congress said the AAP bled his party, but added that they are at a loss to explain the margin of their loss. “AAP clearly ruined our fortunes in a few seats, including in Tankara and Wankaner. However, the overall results in Saurashtra forces one to concede that people love the BJP despite the latter’s failure over issues like price rise, Covid and farm distress,” said the GPCC working president, adding, “It is true that the BJP has instilled terror in the minds of common people by demanding that particular booths would have to give their candidate a lead of a certain number of votes. However, we never expected to be rejected this way. We failed to gauge the people’s mood.”
BJP’s Education Minister Jitu Vaghani countered the claims, saying the people rejected Congress’s “false propaganda” over price rise, farm distress, unemployment, etc. “The Saurashtra sweep is a result of the work done by Narendra Modi and the change he has brought about in the region over the past 20 years. The Congress indulged in false propaganda, but people rejected it and chose those who stand for serving the people,” said Vaghani.
