Crucial to BJP’s Gujarat success, Delhi may be C R Paatil’s next challenge

Though Paatil enjoys massive clout — his bungalow in Gandhinagar is always buzzing with visitors as people think that a call from Paatil to a government officer will get their work done — and he is known to enjoy the support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Navsari MP first had to overcome the “outsider” tag. When he took the helm of the state unit, the party had 99 Assembly seats, its lowest tally since coming to power in the state in 1995. Now, the political topography looks completely transformed as the BJP is comfortably ahead in the Assembly with a record seat count of 156 out of 182 Assembly constituencies.

One of the reasons why the party managed to beat the anti-incumbency factor was the overhaul of the government and organisation that happened under Paatil’s watch. Paatil’s appointment of Dalit leader Vinod Chavda as the general secretary was also a first for the party.

“Being of Marathi origin was considered a major challenge for him (Paatil) to succeed in Gujarat. However, he has overcome it quite effectively. I think one of the important reasons for this was his command over Gujarati. His Gujarati diction is impeccable and better than many Gujaratis,” said a BJP leader.

Another party functionary said, “Paatil took over from Jitu Vaghani. At the time, the situation of the party was a bit vulnerable. After taking over the reins and settling down, Paatil’s authority over the party unit was felt to have been established when he got general secretary (organisation) Bhikhubhai Dalsaniya transferred from the state. After that, Paatil got a completely free hand.”

BJP MP Kirit Solanki said, “The implementation of the ‘panna pramukh’ strategy and the appointment of a Dalit as party general secretary are two most significant decisions of Paatil. Earlier, Dalits used to be appointed party secretary or vice president. But the appointment of a Dalit to a key position sent a positive message to society.”

Tenure highlights

The BJP’s good electoral performance under Paatil began in the 2021 local body polls when the party decimated the Congress almost everywhere. Apart from six municipal corporations, BJP also won 31 district panchayats, around 200 taluka panchayats, and around 75 municipalities in the state. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) emerged in Paatil’s backyard of Surat Municipal Corporation. Contesting for the first time, the AAP won 27 seats and became the main Opposition party in the civic body.

The biggest move of Paatil’s tenure came in September 2021 when the entire Vijay Rupani government was replaced with the administration led by the relatively inexperienced Bhupendra Patel. The transition happened smoothly under Paatil’s watchful eyes. Shortly after his appointment as the state BJP president, Paatil had got two ministers of the Rupani government to sit at the party headquarters to listen to party workers’ complaints twice a week and resolve them.

A BJP functionary added, “The order to remove the Rupani government and the selection of Bhupendra Patel as the successor of Rupani must have been taken by the top party leadership. But, the need to replace the Rupani government must have been conveyed to the party leadership by Paatil.”

Even after Bhupendra Patel took over as CM, Paatil played a crucial role in several major decisions that the government took, including the rollback of the Gujarat Cattle Control (Keeping and Moving) in Urban Areas Bill, 2022, whose passage set off protests by the Maldhari community across the state. Paatil was also the BJP leader who announced the cancellation of the Par-Tapi-Narmada river interlinking project, which ran into protests from tribals in south Gujarat.

Party sources also said Paatil played an important role when two senior Cabinet ministers in the Patel government, Rajendra Trivedi and Purnesh Modi, were stripped of important portfolios of Revenue and Roads & Buildings departments respectively last August, allegedly following complaints of inefficiency.

A veteran BJP leader observed that Paatil took a backseat to Union Home Minister Amit Shah during the Assembly elections. “During the elections, unlike other instances, Paatil did the groundwork without coming into too much limelight. It might have been a strategy to give prominence to Shah over Paatil in Gujarat to give a national colour to the Assembly elections, to project it as ‘Modi versus all others’.”

The BJP functionary went on to say, “I think, after the Lok Sabha elections, Paatil will certainly be tapped for a bigger role at the national level. I can see him withdrawing. It could be because the party has achieved a historic record under him and there seems to be no challenge left for him in the state. He is a man who likes challenges and he may have set new goals for himself in his mind.”

Asked to evaluate Paatil’s tenure, Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said, “We do not have to evaluate his tenure. It is their (BJP’s) internal matter. But, Paatil used to say that he would not take a single Congress person into the BJP. In contrast, 60-70% of the people in power today have Congress roots. Gujarat used to be a model of the cooperative sector. That model has now been politicised and governmentalised. The cooperative movement has been finished by them. The cooperative sector sustained major losses during C R Paatil’s tenure. It may have helped their party politically but it caused Gujarat a great loss.”