Gujarat elections: Why Modi magic will continue to hold sway

Many nay-sayers, especially from Lutyens Media circles, had predicted that DeMo would be the undoing of NaMo, especially in parts of Gujarat, where either the unstructured or the cash economy was strong. Besides, they claimed, ruling a state for twenty-two years, as the BJP has done in Gujarat, is bound to produce an inevitable anti-incumbency reflux. They are more wrong, I think, than right.

The fact, as some friends from Gujarat explained to me recently, is that Delhi doesn’t understand Gujarat, or for that matter, most other parts of India. My interlocutors were two senior professors and Vice-Chancellors from Gujarat. They admitted that a certain degree of BJP fatigue had indeed set. In addition, DeMo had hit many Gujaratis where it hurt the most — their pockets. Money being so important to them, Gujaratis would never take kindly to losses inflicted by political decisions. Then, there was also the Hardik Patel effect. He had managed to capture the resentment and disenfranchisement experienced by a section of the youth, especially those from upper castes, who feel that their future is no longer bright under the present dispensation.

But does this mean that BJP’s chances are dented this time? The answer is clearly, no. Not only because the surveys have been predicting a victory for BJP, but because of the enormous efforts by the party. It would seem that the entire machinery of the party, both at the Centre and state, has been mobilised to recapture power. Clearly, when it comes to Gujarat, the home state of both PM Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah, failure is not an option. My friends added that there was one more factor, which Lutyens Delhi didn’t take into account. The Gujaratis would not betray one of their own. Modi was, is, and will remain a Gujarati.

I was convinced of this when I listened to the PM’s rally on November 29 at Morbi, the heart of the ceramic tile business in Saurashtra, one of the areas hit hard by DeMo. What was Modi’s pitch? He clearly said that he was not from UP or Varanasi: he was from Gujarat, he was a Gujarati, he was one of them. The audience cheered. He said, I understand you and your problems. He reminded his listeners how former PM Indira Gandhi covered her nose during her visit there in 1979, with that picture appearing on the cover of the popular magazine Chitralekha. Modi was then an RSS worker participating in the relief operations. He failed to mention that the reason Mrs G had covered her nose was that there were rotting corpses all over after the huge floods; even rescue workers and her accompanying staff had covered their noses.

But the message was unmistakable. He was an insider, such as the Congress central leadership could never be. The BJP under him would never neglect, overlook, forget, let alone disrespect Gujarati pride and honour. Modi specified all that he had done to bring water to Saurashtra. He spoke of how impoverished the region was before Narmada reached Saurashtra, a feat that many considered impossible and which movements and NGOs such as Narmada Bachao Andolan had campaigned against. He added that the heat and distance were so immense that the water might dry up before reaching its destination. So he had the canals covered with solar panels, both to save the evaporate, and generate electricity.

He reminded his farmer-listeners how they had to stand in line for hours to get their quota of urea. As Gujarat CM he found that the urea was being “diverted.” It was another case of “loot.” It was he who stopped it, he told his listeners. “We got the urea coated with neem, which sisters in villages gathered, thus improving its quality and creating employment,” he added. In between his impressive and intimate litany of achievements and commitments, he inserted jibes and asides against the Congress and its first family.

The crowds lapped it up. Though the thunderous applause or ecstatic adulation of the past were missing, amply evident was a sober and shrewd, if muted, endorsement. The audience participated, nodded, paid attention, got more than their worth of time and effort to attend the rally. On Modi’s part, it was one more example of a command performance. He exuded confidence as well as sincerity, marshalling a huge amount of data and detail to prove that the BJP continues to be the best possible option to the people of Gujarat. He, personally, regardless of who became the CM, guaranteed it.

Modi’s juggernaut is unstoppable. Unless something totally unexpected upsets the political applecart, the BJP is all set to win Gujarat. Once more, thanks, in large measure, to one man — Narendra Damodardas Modi. The mystique and mastery persist.

The author is a poet and professor at JNU. Views expressed are personal.