On A Break From Bharat Jodo Yatra, Lone Ranger Rahul Gandhi In Poll-Bound Gujarat With Much At Stake

Unlike in 2017 when he campaigned inside the BJP’s strongest fort, ahead of becoming the Congress president, the Rahul Gandhi Gujarat will see Monday will be without any such trappings.

Ahmedabad: Beginning September 7, 2022, he threw the mundane realpolitik out of the window for a quest of life where it was all about guts, wits, love and fresh air. Jawaharlal Nehru’s great-grandson Rahul Gandhi set out on his own discovery of India, unadulterated by what he was fed, what he read or was made to read.

Seventy-five days later, when he comes to Gujarat on Monday, November 21, he is riding astride the crest of a playful sea of humanity. This is unlike all times earlier when he was either the president or the vice-president of the Congress. He has no baggage this time. He is likely to eventually turn all prevailing wisdom on its head to usher in a greenfield party.

There is time for that, though. As of now, the Bharat Jodo Yatra has taken a break and Rahul has bowed to the demands of realpolitik. He is coming alone to campaign for a day in Gujarat, exactly 10 days to the first phase of the state assembly elections on December 1. The second phase of polling will take place on December 5, and the result will be out, along with Himachal Pradesh’s, on December 8.     

The journey that began from Kanyakumari in the south and headed for Kashmir in the north had originally nothing to do if any state on the route faced an election, nor was there any idea of a detour. Himachal Pradesh had its election on November 12, but Rahul and his yatra skipped the hill state altogether. But — in hindsight — not Gujarat, a crucial state that Prime Minister Narendra Modi desperately needs to retain and the Congress equally requires to win.

Many wondered, many criticised, and many called him immature that his Bharat Jodo Yatra was leaving out Gujarat — a state where he had his best stint as his party’s rockstar campaigner in 2017 when the Congress put up its best performance, restricting the BJP to double digits.

But unlike in 2017 when he was about to become the president of the country’s oldest party, Rahul will be here without any such trappings.

Addressing Adivasis

His first outing is in the tribal regions of Surat district, strategically planned given that the Congress has a strong chance to not only retain but improve its performance here. Rahul will be here in the backdrop of a confident tribal leadership, which had a few months ago forced the mighty Narendra Modi government run by him at the Centre and controlled by him in the state to withdraw its ambitious Par-Tapi-Narmada Riverlinking Project after huge protests led by Congress’ young aggressive MLA Anant Patel from the same region.

Not only Patel, there is Anand Chaudhary too in Surat district and a host of other leaders and grassroots Adivasi organisations, who have also been fighting a long and tough battle for their land against Hindustan Zinc’ Vedanta copper plant in south Gujarat.

Out of 27 seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes candidates in the state, the Congress and its allies won 18 in 2017, leaving only nine for the ruling BJP. By now, the BJP has already poached four key tribal MLAs from the Congress — Jitu Chaudhary (Kaprada in Valsad district), Mangal Gavit (Dangs), Mohansinh Rathwa (Chhotaudepur in central Gujarat) and Ashwin Kotwal (Khedbrahma in north Gujarat). Also, the party’s seniormost tribal MLA Anil Joshiyara from Bhiloda in north Gujarat died in April this year due to post-Covid complications, and his son later joined the BJP hoping to get a ticket but that did not happen.

Rahul Gandhi comes to Gujarat’s tribal regions armed with strong allegations against the Narendra Modi government of “weakening the laws” framed by the Congress-led UPA government to empower tribals. On Sunday, November 20, he addressed the Adivasi Mahila Workers' Sammelan at Jalgaon-Jamod in Maharashtra's Buldhana district, calling tribals the "first owners" of the country with equal rights.

The Congress leader is likely to hit the BJP government where it hurts the most while the party’s Gujarat unit has also been alleging “deliberately tardy implementation” of key laws like the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, Forest Rights Act, Land Rights, Panchayat Raj Act and the reservation for women in local bodies.

In keeping with his consistent charge, Rahul alleged during his Maharashtra address that Modi wanted to snatch land from the tribals to pass it on to his industrialist friends.

Targeting Saurashtra

Rahul’s next public address will be in Rajkot district at the centre of the vast Saurashtra region in the west of Gujarat, which has 48 seats, and six in Kutch district. Morbi, which saw a devastating collapse of a heritage pedestrian bridge that left 135 people dead on October 30, is 74 km from Rajkot.

The BJP-ruled Morbi municipality is in the dock with charges of negligence and corruption in awarding the maintenance contract of the British era bridge to a private and politically influential firm without any experience in this area and without inviting any tenders. While on one hand, the nine persons arrested in connection with the disaster are just workers and spot managers of the firm, on the other hand the owner of Oreva Ajanta firm has gone underground and no Morbi official faces any police complaint.     

Rahul Gandhi, who had announced loan waiver to farmers and daytime power supply during his September 5 visit to the state, is also expected to raise issues of the youth and increasingly expensive agriculture for the farmers in the region, which is 78 percent rural.

The one huge advantage the Congress had in 2017 was the agitation for reservation among OBCs by the Patidars (Patels) led by aggressive young leader Hardik Patel. By now, the agitation by the influential Patidar community — which comprises 11% of the electorate — has tapered off while Hardik Patel, who ran the agitation against the BJP using choicest words for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, is now with the BJP.

The Congress had won 30 out of 54 seats in Saurashtra-Kutch region in 2017, double its tally of 16 in 2012, while the BJP came down from 38 in 2012 to 24 in 2017.

The Congress, which won a majority of Patidar seats in 2017, is likely to lose some of them but that won’t be an advantage directly to the BJP since the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), whose state president Gopal Italia and other two top contestants in Surat, Alpesh Kathiria and Dharmik Malaviya, who are all products of Hardik’s Patidar agitation, would also split the Patel votes.

Essentially, the Patidars have no longer remained an en bloc voting caste and would get divided into three, tilting more towards the BJP.

Though Rahul’s Bharat Jodo Yatra has been getting an unexpectedly spectacular response, it may be early days for him alone to bring any turnaround so quickly. The state and the country will know on December 8, 2022.

The writer is a veteran jornalist and Founder Editor, Development News Network [DNN], Gujarat.

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