“Do you pay wages to a person who has laboured on your farm for harvesting and threshing groundnut, one who has picked cotton and sprayed pesticides on the crop, or to the one roaming around in the village just because he is good-looking? Who do you owe wages,” Lalit Vasoya, the sitting Congress MLA from Gujarat's Dhoraji Assembly constituency, asks a small gathering of farmers in Vadla village in Upleta taluka in Rajkot district, even as a crowd was building up in nearby Dhoraji town for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's public meeting Sunday as part of his campaign for the BJP candidates for the upcoming state Assembly polls. Struck by the question, some men from the gathering respond: “Of course to the one labouring on our farmlands.” Seizing on their words, the MLA tells them: “You are right. You pay to the one who labours on your farm. Similarly, I have toiled for your village for five years. Today, it is time for you to pay me my wages. I have come to seek compensation in the form of votes for the work I have done for you.” Vasoya, a prominent Patidar leader, then reels off details of some of his works – building the village's internal roads at a cost of Rs10.80 lakh and constructing a burial ground's compound wall at a cost of Rs 80,000 from his MLA local area development (LAD) fund. To drive home the point that he had “favoured” Vadla with a population of around 1,000 despite having trailed by a few votes in the 2017 Assembly election from the polling booth here, Vasoya says, “MLA gets Rs 1.5 crore LAD grant annually. If I were to distribute this grant equally among 82 villages and three municipalities in Dhoraji-Upleta area as per their population and take into account the LAD suspension for one year due to Covid, I can allot Rs 30,000 to your village annually. That means Rs 1.20 lakh in five years. But paying special attention to your village, I allotted my development fund to Vadla, even at the cost of other villages. Therefore, I have the right to seek votes here.” Vasoya, 60, tells farmers that Vadla was among the 18 villages of Upleta which received excessive rainfall this monsoon but were not included by the BJP-ruled state government for surveying crop damage and compensation. “We called a meeting of people of 18 villages in Upleta, then made representations in Gandhinagar and created a ruckus in the Assembly and ensured that farmers of Vadla get compensation against excessive rain. I had told village leaders that if I fail to get you compensation against excessive rain, don’t vote for me in the election. So, this is how I have worked.” Vasoya, who was the Saurashtra zone convener of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) which was leading the Patidar quota agitation, was given ticket by the Congress to fight his maiden election from Dhoraji in the 2017 polls, which he clinched by defeating BJP candidate Hari Patel. While campaigning for his 2017 bid, Vasoya had announced that he would use his MLA salary for welfare of people and not for personal use. While campaigning for his re-election as a Congress candidate in 2022, he gives an account to his voters in this regard. “Over the past five years, I got a total of Rs 49.50 lakh as salary… Using that money, I organised 34 health screening camps in Dhoraji, Upleta and Bhayavadar areas where free diagnoses were done and medicines distributed. Twelve extremely poor patients were operated upon free. We ran a community kitchen for 21 days during Covid-19 outbreak and fed daily 5,000 initially and then 14,000. From the balance, we installed ceiling fans in anganwadis, gave school uniforms to poor girls studying in government schools, and sent nutrition kits to villages for malnourished and stunted children,” he tells Vadla residents. While campaigning in nearby Sevantra village, Vasoya tells people that their drinking water woes are going to end soon as the Venu-Moj group drinking water supply project to supply treated drinking water to 48 villages of the area is nearing completion. “Under the Nal Se Jal scheme of the Central government, the state government has launched one pilot project each in south Gujarat, central Gujarat, north Gujarat and Saurashtra region. Under the project, sumps will be constructed in villages and piped water will be available even if the feeder line fails for a couple of days,” Vasoya says. “There are many BJP MLAs from Saurashtra. Even ministers are from areas near us. But I used my rapport with then water supply minister Kunvarji Bavaliya to good use despite his switch to the BJP and brought the pilot project to Upleta so that a sump of drinking water is constructed in your village too,” the MLA tells the villagers, adding he had shared the details of the project with them on their WhatsApp accounts. He also tells Sevantra residents how he and his team drove to Surat and arranged 21 luxury buses for people who wanted to return to their native villages in Upelta and Dhoraji talukas during the Covid lockdown in 2020. “We even sent our personal vehicle to help people reach their homes in their villages,” he claims, crediting himself for the community health centre in Upleta being upgraded to a 100-bed hospital at a cost of Rs 16 crore. In Kerala, a village on the bank of Moj river, Bachu Vamrotiya, a village leader, tries to corner Vasoya by complaining about the difficulties faced by farmers to cross the river during the monsoon and how his village has been left out of the crop loss survey on account of excessive rain. “Despite being an Opposition MLA, I have got approved roads and bridges worth Rs 350 crore in Upleta and Dhoraji. I have already allotted Rs 2 lakh for a causeway across Moj river in your village,” Vasoya replies. “But farmers would have got Rs 65 lakh compensation had our village been included among those affected by excessive rain,” Vamrotiya continues. Pacifying him, the politician says, “Wouldn’t I like to claim credit for getting this done? The fact is, the BJP government has excluded a few villages due to narrow political consideratons. Therefore, we have filed a petition in the Gujarat High Court, demanding Kerala and four other villages should also be surveyed and farmers be compensated.” Vasoya barely mentions any state or national leader of the Congress party during his campaign, with Dhoraji being scheduled for polling in the first phase on December 1. “I have to cover 82 villages and three municipality areas for campaigning in few days. I hardly get around 10 minutes to talk during which I barely manage to give account of work we did over the past five years in this constituency,” he tells The Indian Express. Vasoya targets the BJP over price rise and its candidate, Prof Mahendra Padalia, the Rajkot-based former chancellor of Saurashtra University who is a native of Paneli village in Upleta taluka. Calling the BJP candidate an “outsider”, he asks a gathering in Dumiyani village, “Does anyone of you know him? Have you ever seen him?” As the crowd responds negatively, he goes on: “It is our misfortune that every time, BJP fields an outsider in this seat despite having strong local workers. BJP brings people from Rajkot so that the party doen’t have to face people after election. You can easily stop me in the middle of the street but where will you go to find him?” Hari Patel is also a resident of Rajkot and so is Praveen Makadia, the BJP leader who was elected from this seat before Vasoya in a bypoll. The Congress MLA later tells the Express that an Opposition legislator could not rely on excuses that because he is from an Opposition party the works in his constituency could not be done. “You have to raise your voice when needed but you should also have the humility to bow down for the sake of your people. I personally requested agriculture minister Raghavji Patel to include 10 villages in the damage survey. He agreed to include five,” he says. Vasoya also quashes buzz about him cosying up to the BJP. “I meet former minister Jayesh Radadiya and Porbandar MP Ramesh Dhaduk at community events because we are from the same community. I am also a big farmer leader from Saurashtra. Then why is it that media reports that Vasoya is drifting towards the BJP and not Radadiya warming up to Congress. This is because the BJP knows that they won’t be able to defeat me through ballot so they want to create confusion in minds of people by spreading such conspiracy theories,” he charges.
