India elections: Amit Shah playing caste card deftly to foil Congress plans

Caste has always played a major role in Gujarat elections, which the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has dominated since 1990, both for the state assembly as well as the national parliament.

However, after 17 years, the Indian National Congress (INC) made the biggest gain in 2017 assembly elections by winning 77 seats (80 with allies). And, the Congress party hopes to capitalise on that gain in the general election scheduled on April 23. "We will get more seats this time with a much bigger gain," Chetan Raval, State Congress general secretary, told Khaleej Times on telephone.

That gain was made possible largely due to three youngsters. Hardik Patel, who spearheaded reservation movement for the Patidars (or Patels as they are known), Alpesh Thakor, who is an activist taking up causes of Koli Thakor communities, and Jignesh Mevani, a Dalit activist in the state.

All three, however, have lost their 'magic' to sway votes. The reasons for their waning powers are different but that could dent Congress' chances of garnering more Lok Sabha seats from Gujarat.

At the same time, it won't be a cakewalk for the ruling party like they had in 2014 Lok Sabha election. The party, however, is confident that they would get higher vote share and all 26 seats this time also. "People will vote for the BJP to make Narendra Modi Prime Minister again," Bharat Pandya, the BJP spokesperson in Gujarat told Khaleej Times on telephone.

The Gujarat state politics has swayed from one end to the other in the last two decades. After the formation of Gujarat state in 1960, the Congress party dominated the state politics until the late eighties, except for a brief Janata Party rule post emergency.

Even when opposition looked to getting stronger in the mid-eighties, the then chief minister Madhavsinh Solanki successfully stitched a coalition of castes that helped the Congress keep power and lion's share of vote in the state. He brought Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi and Muslim communities together on the Congress party platform. The coalition theory was called KHAM, derived from first alphabets of every community's name in English.

In 1990, the BJP defeated Solanki's strategy by appealing to Patels, Harijans, Adivasi and Kshtriya (PHAK) and they came to power for the first time in Gujarat with Janata Dal as their allies.

Since then the BJP had considerably consolidated its power base while the Congress literally disintegrated until they went for a soft Hindutva plank with a loose coalition of Patels, OBCs, Dalits and Adivasis (PODA) in 2017 to win 78 assembly seats, their highest tally since 1990. That number has now come down with seven of them quitting the party.

With their PODA theory, the Congress may have even alienated Muslim voters, which forms 9.7 per cent of the state's population and has a deciding influence in about 30 assembly seats.

Out of the seven MLAs quitting the Congress recently, the exit of Alpesh Thakor could hurt them the most as he was instrumental in Congress winning seats in the North Gujarat districts of Banaskantha, Sabarkantha and Mehsana in the 2017 state elections.

Ergo, the BJP is confident of winning all 26 seats again as they reckon that the issues are different from 2017 state election. In 2014, the Congress was decimated and garnered only 33 per cent votes to draw a blank.

While the ruling party is confident of inflicting the same defeat, the Congress leaders are saying that they would definitely gain this time. However, unlike the BJP, the Congress functionaries are refraining from predicting number of seats they would win.

The Patidar votes could swing back to the BJP after Hardik Patel joined the Congress. The community feels 'cheated' by Hardik, who they allege has furthered his political ambition by pretending to be fighting for the community's cause. On the other hand, the BJP claims that Patidar agitation is non-issue now after the implementation of 10 per cent quota for general category poor.

The Patidars are a strong lobby in the Saurashtra region of the state and majority of them are farmers. During the 2017 state election, the Congress won 30 seats out of 49 and the BJP got only 18 with the NCP taking one.

However, Rs6,000 annual income scheme for farmers could tilt the scale in BJP's favour this time.

It would be interesting to see how the four reserved constituencies in South Gujarat vote this time. Of course, Mevani has lost his influence among the reserved backward classes as he has failed to get any benefits for them. Traditionally, however, these seats have been Congress bastions but the BJP swept these seats in 2014 and they are confident of retaining these seats this time also.

A shrewd strategist that he is, Amit Shah has played his cards well by taking key Koli, Adivasi and Kshatriya leaders into the BJP fold from the Congress and that includes four Congress MLAs that resigned recently.

sunilvaidya@khaleejtimes.com