Months after a debilitating defeat in the Assembly elections that left it with just 17 seats in the 182-member Gujarat legislature — and without the Leader of Opposition (LoP) position since it missed the required 10% seat share — the Congress is back on the streets and reaching out to people. Since May 1, the party has been working on its Jan Manch (People's Forum) outreach initiative to provide people with a platform to “voice their concerns about the BJP administration” that has been in power in the state for over two decades and amplify issues that the party claims the BJP government has “no time for”. Interestingly, the outreach has coincided with the Bhupendra Patel-led Gujarat government’s events commemorating 20 years of SWAGAT (State Wide Attention on Grievances by Application of Technology), an online grievance redress initiative that Narendra Modi launched in April 2003 during his tenure as Chief Minister. At the first Jan Manch, Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president Jagdish Thakor said, “When Prime Minister Narendra Modi is busy telling his Mann Ki Baat, the Congress party in Gujarat wants to hear the Mann Ki Baat for the common man and women on the streets.” The Congress is banking on this outreach to get in shape for the Lok Sabha elections, where its record has been far more dismal than in the Assembly polls. The party won 11 of the 26 parliamentary seats in 2009 but since then it has failed to win a single Lok Sabha seat in the state. This, coupled with the BJP’s historic mandate last December in the state elections, underlines the challenges confronting the Congress. As part of the outreach, its leaders have so far visited 16 talukas in eight districts and collected 800-odd complaints from the people. Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Amit Chavda told The Indian Express that the primary motive behind the initiative was “the way the election results panned out — where we got very few seats and the BJP won a big majority”. “Wherever we went, a common complaint among the people was that their voices were not being heard, especially from the ruling party which has spent over two decades ruling the state,” he said. Chavda claimed the “ruling BJP uses Hindutva, muscle and money power to gain ground during elections”. He said, “There is a lot of resentment among people, yet they win elections. We thought it was the right time to go among the people, especially as the elections had just ended. We were surprised to see that the resentment continued to exist on the ground against the BJP, especially about corruption and mismanagement.” “Through this initiative, we can touch base with people across the state before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. We will also get to meet our workers and sort out their problems. This movement will also help people realise that it is Congressmen who are coming to them to solve their problems and not the ruling party.” The outreach began with senior party leaders attending two gatherings in the towns of Vadgam and Palanpur of Banaskantha district on May 1. The first complaint that got “temporarily addressed” pertained to waterlogging in Chitrasar village. “The sarpanch of the village met me and said the problem has been resolved temporarily after our intervention,” said Chavda. Party leaders said they were receiving a varied set of complaints. In the Vagra block of Dahej in Bharuch district, the party said several residents complained that they had lost land to industrialisation but were unable to get jobs. “The government rule of employing 85% locals in the workforce is not being followed. Whatever work is available is on contract. Then there are issues about pollution,” said Chavda. He also elaborated on the other issues the party was taking up. “When we went to Surat, the wife of a head constable of Gujarat Police went missing in August 2022. He was taken for some inquiry by the Delhi Police and has not returned home. When we went to Dahod, one of the six smart cities in the state, we found it gets drinking water once every six days. This after Rs 300 crore has been spent on smart city projects in Dahod.” Chavda added that the complaints were being redirected to the state government. “The idea is to help the complainants and also expose the lacunae in the administration,” he said. The Congress held a similar public outreach after deaths during the Covid pandemic. “The government was stuck at 10,000 Covid deaths. But we filled more than one lakh forms of those who had died of Covid. Their families ended up being eligible for compensation. Our movement helped more people get government compensation. We did not benefit in the elections, as people later got divided in the name of Hindutva, or caste politics. But now during our visits, people tell us that they made a mistake by voting for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and indirectly benefited the BJP,” said Chavda.
