Once upon a time in Gujarat… Behind Rupala’s woes, a Kshatriya longing for past

Rupala is facing his first electoral contest 22 years after that defeat – and his biggest challenge yet. At the age of 69, seeking to make his Lok Sabha debut, Rupala has run into protests of the kind the mighty BJP is not used to in Gujarat, with the Kshatriyas seeking the cancellation of his candidature over remarks made by him about the community.

A Kadva Patidar leader, Rupala suggested that the Kshatriyas had bowed meekly before the British. Since then, he has apologised several times, as has Gujarat BJP chief C R Paatil. However, the community refuses to be assuaged, and is sticking to its demand that the BJP field someone else from the Rajkot Lok Sabha seat, which has long been a party bastion.

Kshatriyas vs Patidars

While the controversy on the surface is that of “Kshatriya asmita (honour)”, the undercurrent is that of the Patidars gradually replacing them as the dominant group within the BJP.

Ramjubha Jadeja, the convener of a group of Kshatriya organisations that is driving the agitation, says: “Currently, our only demand is that the BJP cancel the ticket to Rupala. If the BJP could make L K Advani resign (as party president) for praising (Muhammed Ali) Jinnah, then the same criterion applies to Rupala. And he is not a bigger leader than Advani.”

Jadeja adds that the group’s list of grievances against the BJP goes beyond Rupala. Sources said the issues they have raised include “negligible representation in the government”, “unfulfilled promise to make a museum of princely states at the Statue of Unity”, “unfulfilled demand to confer Bharat Ratna on the erstwhile king of Bhavnagar state Krishna Kumarsinh Gohil”, “allocation of limited BJP tickets”, and “insignificant posts for the community in the party organisation”.

Of the 182 MLAs elected in the 2022 Gujarat Assembly elections, 46, or more than 25%, were Patidars; their population in the state is estimated to be 18%. Given the BJP’s brute majority in the House, 41 of the 46 Patidar MLAs were elected on the party ticket.

Kshatriya leaders talk about the time Pradeepsinh Jadeja, Pradipsinh Vaghela and Bhupendrasinh Chudasama held important posts in the party. In more recent years, Patidars including Rupala, R C Faldu and Jitu Vaghani have served as state BJP presidents.

A senior BJP Kshatriya leader says: “For the first time, there is only one member of the community in the Gujarat Cabinet. There used to be three-four.” While Balvantsinh Rajput is the sole Kshatriya minister, the Patidar Cabinet members include Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, and Rushikesh Patel, Raghavji Patel and Praful Pansheriya.

Noted sociologist Gaurang Jani talks about how the Kshatriyas are not used to being relegated to the sidelines, compared to when they dominated the landscape when Gujarat was formed in 1960 (the state had many small principalities, ruled by Kshatriyas). “In 1967, the Swatantra Party (which comprised representatives of many princely states), supported by the community, won 64 seats of the total 168 in the Gujarat Assembly, posing a serious challenge to the ruling Congress,” Jani says.

The sociologist adds that the two communities also found themselves pitted against each other as land reforms saw ownership move from mostly Kshatriyas to tillers who were largely Patidars.

* KHAM and after

To get around the Swatantra Party challenge, the Congress came up with its KHAM – Kshatriyas-Harijans-Adivasis-Muslims – formula. “Under it, they systematically propagated that communities such as Thakors (seen as lower castes) were also Kshatriyas. And so, a big chunk of such Kshatriya voters aligned with the Congress,” Jani says.

Consequently, the Patidars moved to the BJP, helping propel it to power for the first time in 1995 under Keshubhai Patel as CM.

While the BJP was able to erase some of the caste lines under the broad brush of Hindutva in the following years, leading up to the 2002 Gujarat riots, it has turned to the Patidars since the 2015-16 reservation agitation by the community. In the 2017 Assembly polls which followed that stir, the Congress gave the BJP a scare.

Jani adds that it is also notable that the epicentre of the Kshatriya protests is Rajkot, the seat from where Rupala has been fielded. Rajkot lies at the heart of the Saurashtra region, and is a Patidar and BJP bastion.

It was in Rajkot that the Jana Sangh got a toehold in 1967 when one of its founder members, Chiman Shukla, was elected as an MLA. After winning from Rajkot in 1975, Keshubhai Patel became the first Jana Sangh state minister.

Between 1989 and now, the BJP has not lost the Rajkot Lok Sabha seat barring 2009.

* What next

Seen as a good orator, Rupala faced his last electoral battle in 2002, when amidst the BJP sweep after the Godhra riots, he lost to a young Paresh Dhanani of the Congress. After the humiliating defeat, Rupala reportedly considered quitting politics.

According to a BJP insider, “His rapport with Modi and Sanghani meant he remained in the core group of the party and, thanks to Modi, he was named president of the BJP’s Gujarat unit in 2006.”

Rupala and Modi had come to know each other well when the former was Amreli district BJP chief and Modi the BJP’s organisational secretary in the state.

Rupala’s confidants talk of his deep rural connect, knowledge of Gujarati literature, and fondness for bhajans. In 2021, after he was elevated as Union Cabinet minister and given charge of the newly created portfolio of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, he undertook a ‘Sagar Parikrama’, covering “the entire length of the country’s sea coast”.

However, according to a BJP insider, where Rupala has lagged is building a base at the grass-roots. “He doesn’t like party workers approaching him for petty tasks. But at that level, this matters… This is the reason he fought no direct election for 20 years after his loss in the Assembly elections of 2002.”