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Advani may find the going tough

The popularity of Bharatiya Janata Party veteran L K Advani is on the wane in Gujarat.

The thin crowds that made his first roadshow a flop show in Bavla near Ahmedabad on Sunday indicates that though the five-time MP may retain his Gandhinagar Lok Sabha seat, a BJP stronghold, his victory margin could be shamefully low compared to his leads of 217,138 votes in 2004 and 121,747 votes in 2009.

Unlike in the past, there were only a handful of bikes accompanying his open jeep and fewer saffronites who again were chanting pro-Narendra Modi slogans and wearing Modi masks and Modi-for-PM caps.

What’s more, the vehicles in the cavalcade, including his own jeep, carried photographs of the BJP prime ministerial candidate and the loudspeakers blurted out songs hailing Modi. But Advani cannot complain but only showers praise on his protege in his boring speeches recalling his ancestors’ Gujarat connection.

A BJP worker told Khaleej Times that the Gujaratis’ craze for Advani was a thing of the past and the crowds gathered included supporters of Advani’s popular campaign managers like minister Anandi Patel, seven-time MP Harin Pathak.

“Advani will definitely win as people will vote for the BJP but the victory margin will be considerably lower than that in earlier elections”, a BJP legislator said, adding that the octogenarian leader had rarely visited his constituency and never solved the problems of the constituents.

Advani’s son and daughter have been campaigning hard for their father but absence of Advani’s main campaign manager and former junior home minister Amit Shah, his cold war with Modi, his earlier reluctance to contest from Gandhinagar will all go against Advani.

Last month Advani, 86, had courted controversy by wanting to contest from Bhopal, but decided to contest from Gandhinagar later, following intervention of RSS and the party who were of the view that Advani, by not contesting from Gujarat, would send wrong signals to the voters.

Advani bagged a lead in five of the seven Assembly segments of Gandhinagar in the 2009 Lok Sabha election. However, his vote share that year dropped to 54 per cent from 61 per cent in the 2004 election. Six of the seven MLAs in the constituency are from the BJP and one from the Congress.

Since Advani has rarely visited Gandhinagar in the past five years, the district BJP unit which was hopeful of a local faithful being given the ticket is also in no mood to back the veteran leader. The BJP’s recent three-day rally in Gandhinagar in favour of Advani also failed to draw crowds.

In sum, it will not be a cakewalk for Advani in Gandhinagar where voters of the two rural assembly segments have always given a thumbs-down to the ‘outsider’ who has emerged triumphant only because of support from the remaining five urban assembly seats.

Though Congress candidate ex-minister Kirit Patel and Aam Aadmi Party’s businessman Rutual Mehta are not a formidable opponents, Advani’s old age and resentment among BJP workers against the party stalwart may upset his apple-cart.

mahesh@khaleejtimes.com