As Gujarat votes today, the opposition within BJP’s biggest challenge

Kshatriyas who comprise nearly 6.5% of Gujarat’s population took offence to a comment about the community that BJP candidate and Union Minister Parshottam Rupala made on March 22 and launched protests throughout the state, disrupting BJP rallies and threatened to boycott the BJP.

As the protests snowballed, veteran leaders such as former Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala, former Union Minister Vallabh Kathiriya, and former Chief Minister Vijay Rupani stepped in to campaign for Rupala, a Kadva Patidar facing his rival and Congress candidate Paresh Dhanani, a Leuva Patidar, 22 years after the latter defeated him in the Assembly elections in their home turf of Amreli. Senior BJP leaders feel if the community takes its anger to the booth, the party may “lose its lead in at least five seats”.

This was also the first time that the BJP — which returned to power in the state in December 2022 on the back of a record-breaking performance — replaced its candidates in Vadodara and Sabarkantha, following internal protests. Sitting MP Ranjan Bhatt was replaced in Vadodara by a first-timer, Hemang Joshi, while Bhikhaji Thakor was replaced in Sabakantha by another first-timer, Shobhana Baraiya.

“We have never seen such opposition in the BJP,” said a senior leader, reasoning that with candidates declared well in advance it “gave time for such rivalries to surface”.

For the BJP, the challenge is to repeat its performance in 2014 and 2019 when it swept all 26 Lok Sabha constituencies. Setting the bar higher this time, the party is aiming to win all the seats by a margin of 5 lakh votes or more but that depends on a high turnout. State BJP chief C R Paatil — who is contesting for the fourth time from Navsari, which he won by 6.89 lakh votes in 2019, the highest margin in the country — wrote to the EC on May 1 to “take proactive measures” to ensure a high turnout.

Patidar quota agitation leader Hardik Patel, now a BJP MLA from Viramgam, is confident that the BJP will again sweep Gujarat. “In 2019 we already won five seats with a lead of more than five lakh,” Patel told The Indian Express on Monday.

Weakened Congress

Shrunk to its lowest tally in the state Assembly, the Congress is contesting 23 parliamentary seats and is hoping to ride on the Kshatriya anger against the BJP. The Congress also faced its share of dissent when its national spokesperson Rohan Gupta suddenly backed out of the contest from Ahmedabad East and defected to the BJP.

The Congress is currently left with 14 MLAs and five of them are contesting the Lok Sabha elections. They are Tushar Chaudhary (Sabarkantha), Amit Chavda (Anand), Anant Patel (Valsad), Geniben Thakor (Banaskantha), and Gulabsinh Chauhan (Panchmahal). The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which won five seats in the Gujarat Assembly polls, has sent two of its MLAs, Chaitar Vasava and Umesh Makwana, to contest the Lok Sabha polls from Bharuch and Bhavnagar.

While the BJP is contesting the election on Modi’s image, the Opposition has taken up the role of the “saviour of the Constitution” attacking the BJP for its “Abki baar, 400 paar” slogan, claiming that it is seeking the brute majority to “amend the Constitution”.

Meanwhile, the five Assembly seats that will see by-elections are Porbandar, Manavadar, Vijapur, Khambhat, and Vaghodia. Except for Vaghodia, where former Independent MLA Dharmendrasinh Vaghela is contesting on a BJP ticket, the others have former Congress MLAs Arjun Modhwadia, Arvind Ladani, C J Chavda and Chirag Patel in the fray.