Political checkmate: Decoding BJP’s inability to control the political narrative in Gujarat

The BJP’s inability to control the political narrative in Gujarat is evident in Anandiben Patel’s resignation from the chief minister’s post. Her announcement on Facebook clearly caught the party by surprise, indicating a measure of disillusionment with the party leadership. Since the Lok Sabha elections, it has been the Congress which has struggled with factionalism and anti-incumbency against state governments. So when the BJP is forced to look for a new chief minister in the state it has ruled the longest, alarm bells are bound to ring. Anandiben’s claim that she will turn 75, and therefore the party would need a younger leader, is hardly convincing. The party should have considered her age when anointing her as the chief minister in place of Narendra Modi who was moving to Delhi. If things were going smooth for the BJP there would have been no need to displace Anandiben. Unfortunately for the BJP that has not been the case. 

The Patidar agitation for reservation gave a rough jolt to the BJP and to its halo of impregnability it acquired in Gujarat. So rapidly did the fledgling Hardik Patel-led Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti acquire mass following that the BJP and the Anandiben government had no answers to the inexplicable surge of Patidar discontent. The government crackdown weakened the agitation, but alienated the community from the BJP. In the ensuing panchayat polls, the Patidar angst allowed the Congress to make an impressive comeback in rural areas. That result placed Anandiben on notice and ensured that BJP president Amit Shah would have a greater say in the party organisation. In February, Shah’s aide Vijay Rupani was named as the BJP’s Gujarat unit president. When the government announced a new reservation policy for Patidars, it was Rupani, and not Anandiben, who addressed the press conference. Subsequently, Anandiben was also left embarrassed by corruption allegations in a land deal involving her daughter’s associates. 

The last straw was the Dalit anger that erupted after the incident of cow vigilantism in Una. The government went soft on the accused leading to protests that snowballed on Anandiben’s face. The show of strength by the Dalits in Ahmedabad on Sunday had clearly rattled Anandiben and appear to have hastened her exit. While the BJP can now attempt to regain political capital under a new leader, the party will be troubled by the fact that it has few options open to mollify the Patidars and Dalits. The reservation demand is legally unviable because of the 50 per cent cap on reservations. The BJP has so far managed to skirt issues of caste discrimination and empowerment of lower castes through a twin strategy of focussing on Hindutva and industrialisation. The vacuum left by Modi is clearly evident in state’s social contradictions and the political differences in the BJP coming to the fore. 

It is quite ironical that the BJP finds itself on the backfoot despite the main opposition party, the Congress, being in no position yet to offer a credible challenge. That the BJP in Gujarat is unravelling shortly after Modi left, casts a shadow on the Prime Minister too. Amit Shah would been a safe bet for the chief ministership in this scenario, but Modi cannot spare him from national duties. One of the difficulties Anandiben faced was that both Modi, and soon Shah too, towered over her in the Gujarat BJP. The incoming chief minister will also struggle to rise to the stature of these two weighty personages. The Modi era in Gujarat is over and the BJP must make peace with that reality. It must prepare itself for a transition to new leaders who may never hold the state in thrall in the manner in which Modi succeeded for 13 long years.