Gujarat Elections – 2012

The month of December saw the elections that the whole country had been waiting for the whole year – Gujarat Elections, there was also a sideshow in Himachal Pradesh (no offence meant to Himachali brothers), but more on that later.

The battle lines were drawn, the Sangh Parivar, BJP and a substantial chunk of the upwardly mobile middle class in India, were looking forward to a validation of their faith in a man they regarded as India’s Saviour – Mr. Narendra Modi. The stakes were high, a three-peat performance or hat-trick of victories for Mr. Modi was being seen as an essential proof of his hold on the state of Gujarat and as such a confirmation of his being the Indian Right’s answer to dislodging the beleaguered UPA government from the Centre.

The opposition, on the other hand, made up chiefly by the Indian National Congress (INC) was essentially trying to cause an upset in Gujarat, so as to take the wind out of Mr. Modi’s sails and stymie his promotion to National Politics at Delhi by ensuring his sphere of influence remains limited to Gujarat. In that context, upset in the state election was being defined as Not a Victory for INC, but;

·         limiting Mr. Modi to less seats than what he won in 2007 (117 seats) ;and /or

·         less than 2/3 seats to Mr. Modi

The Campaign

As happens in these majorly awaited elections there were lots of sub-plots in the story, a few of these were:

·         Rebellion by Keshubhai Patel

One of the most important communities in Gujarat is the Patel community. There are three subgroups within this community; Leuva, Kadva and Koli. The community forms 15-20% of the state’s population. Keshubhai Patel was an ex-chief minister of Gujarat who ruled the state from 1995-2001 (with a small break in between), arguably the tallest leader in the state BJP, till Narendra Modi was brought in to replace him as Chief Minister in 2001.

Post being removed from the Chief Minister’s post, Mr. Patel along with a few other leaders like Gordhan Zadaphia (Home Minister during the 2002 riots) and a section of the Sangh Parivar which was bristling at being sidelined by Narendra Modi, formed a party called Gujarat Parivartan Party.

The party was hoping to capitalise on Mr. Keshubhai Patel’s pull on the Leuva Patel community constituting 8% of the electorate themselves and reportedly able to influence 40 out of the 182 seats. This was expected to dent the BJP’s vote share and provide a fillip to chances of the INC in Gujarat.

·         Defection by Narhari Amin

As has been seen in many elections, there were a lot of misgivings in the INC rank and file with respect to allotment of seats and tickets. At the eve of the election Mr. Narhari Amin a strong local leader of the INC defected to the BJP. As a result the, INC already facing bleak prospects in the state, had to further face in-fighting and rebellion.

·         Electoral Campaign

o    BJP

Mr. Modi’s campaign was a month long yatra, in true BJP tradition. It was called Vivekananda Yuva Vikas Yatra, with Mr. Modi aiming to cover each of the 182 constituencies in the state. The campaign was also full of technological innovations like “3D” speeches wherein the image of Mr. Modi was projected at various places simultaneously. The message of the campaign was clear in projecting Mr. Modi as the sole vote-catcher for the BJP, with everything from ticket distribution, to alliances, to campaign strategy was being directed from the Chief Ministers Office.

o   INC

The INC campaign was unique, in the sense that the Gandhi family was not as prominent in the campaign as would have been expected in a straight fight between the BJP and INC. The campaign also included an ad campaign, the face of which was “Tulika”, a Gujarati actress and most of the campaigning was done by local leaders like Arjun Modvadia the chief of the state unit.

The attempt was to localise the election to by neutralising the BJP’s attempt to
play it up as a straight fight between Mr. Rahul Gandhi and Mr. Modi, a sort of prelims for the final round in 2014.

Another very peculiar strategy that was adopted by the top-leadership of the INC was to avoid any sort of personal attacks on Mr. Modi, unlike the earlier “maut ka saudagar” comment by Mrs. Gandhi in 2007. In addition, another omission from the campaign was a sort of reticence to mention the riots in Godhra.

It was a strategy to not personally target Mr. Modi and avoid polarising the electorate on larger issues.

The Result

It was BJP all the way. The BJP almost repeated its performance in 2007 (117 seats) by winning 115 seats as opposed to 61 seats by the INC. It was a landslide to say the least.

The INC suffered losses of a few heavyweights like Arjun Modhwadia and Leader of Opposition Shaktisinh Gohil, whereas the GPP flopped big time by winning only 2 seats. All the grand plans of the opposition to use the GPP to play spoiler and thereby spring a surprise in this key election came to nought.

Impact of the Gujarat and HP Elections

·         The clamour within the BJP for the projection of Mr. Modi as PM started, with Ms. Smriti Irani stating her endorsement in his favour on the day of the election result. Now, more than a month after the victory, even more leaders have stated their preference for Mr. Modi as PM, like Mr. Yashwant Sinha etc.

o   However, the same is not as easy as it looks as the dissenting voices within the NDA have already started speaking up with the Shiv Sena asking for Ms. Sushma Swaraj as the PM candidate. So the BJP is in for interesting times!

·    The INC has a clear task set out for it, its Gujarat strategy is in tatters. Can it find a credible strategy to unseat Mr. Modi from Gujarat? Actually, it’s not only Mr. Modi, Gujarat has been a BJP stronghold for close to 17 years. For, those interested in trivia, the INC still holds the record for the most seats ever won in a state election in Gujarat, in the state elections of 1985, the INC won 149 seats out of 182! A record that still stands, but thereafter it has been a BJP story.

·         The INC won the election in Himachal Pradesh; the INC leaders attached a great importance to this victory, and one could dismiss the logic entirely, because, while Mr. Virbhadra Singh might have won the election in a superb singlehanded effort (also it may be noted that HP is known for electing alternate governments every election), it also showed that there was no uniform anti-INC wave in the country, inspite of 2012 being one of the worst years the INC had to endure.

Some other thoughts

I have always wondered, about elections and strong leaders, when they steam roll opposition, how the opposition would feel, what motivates the opposition to still turn up and fight an election against a seemingly insurmountable opponent.

Even in a seemingly one-sided election, the vote shares are worth analysing. Now, the Election Commission of India website does not provide an overall report yet on the Gujarat Election 2012, from a lot of other websites, the vote share I got was as following:

·         BJP:48-52%

·         INC: ~ 40%

·         Others – 8-12%

Now, vote share percentages in India by itself do not mean a lot, due to the first past the post system. Therefore, one might see, two parties with seemingly similar vote shares with very different seats.

However, the point I am trying to make at a larger level is general in nature, that on a consolidated basis for every voter that votes for the winner there is another voter who votes against the party. This is what motivates political parties to assiduously woo particular castes and sub-castes as the correct combination of different groups engineered through defections; alliances and rebel candidates can make all the difference in an Indian Election!!