For all practical purposes, it will be the Gujarat unit of the BJP, and not the party’s Central Election Committee (CEC), that will finalise the names of all its 182 candidates for the upcoming Assembly polls in the State.
Sources said unlike the process it adopts for selecting candidates for polls in other States, the BJP CEC will hardly be vetting any further list approved by the party’s Gujarat unit. Normally, the State units send multiple names for one seat and it’s the CEC at the BJP headquarters which takes the final call after a long-drawn discussion, lasting as much as three to four hours.
According to sources, lengthy analysis of each seat and probable candidates is underway at all district levels in Gujarat and candidates would be finalised by the end of the month.
“It is not like other States from where CEC receives names of three to four short-listed candidates for each Assembly seats with final decision left with the central leadership. At times, decisions on some seats are even suspended to be arrived at after fresh checks ,” they said. The reason for BJP’s CEC having little role in finalising the list of candidates for Gujarat also relates to the fact that the Prime Minister and the party president both hail from Gujarat.
The BJP, which has ruled Gujarat for 22 years, will again witness a contest with the Congress which has veered towards caste polarisation.
Influential Patidars versus numerically strong OBCs being wooded by both sides would tilt the balance in the poll. “OBC leaders like Alpesh Thakor’s entry in the Congress may help reverse consolidation of Patidars in favour of the BJP,” sources in the BJP said. It was pointed out that Hardik Patel ,who lead the reservation stir for the Patel community and pitted against the BJP Government, did not meet Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi out in the public view for the fear of “antagonising” Patels who are apparently apprehensive of increasing Congress proximity with the OBC leaders of Gujarat.
Patel’s demand for reservation in the Government jobs in the recent years has been propelled by the fact that a large chunk of OBCs have, for few generations, left their traditional professions and joined Government services and thus “improving their position”. On the contrary, Patidars, the landed class, had lagged behind in the job race and are thereby seeking a job quota for themselves.
The Hardik Patel-led Patidar protest for reservations for Patels has apparently created a wedge between the BJP and the community which forms about 15 per cent of the population. To offset any loss of votes in the Patel community, the BJP has also doggedly cultivated the numerically-strong OBCs, particularly Kolis, who constitute 18 to 20 per cent of Gujarat’s population. Incidentally, President Ram Nath Kovind was head of the BJP Dalit Morcha between 1998 and 2002 and also president of the All-India Koli Samaj.
“BP will better its record of 115 seats of last time and comfortably reach its targeted 150,” claimed BJP’s MP from Navsari, C R Patil. He said Congress has lined up “these stray leaders” as it could not have tied up with any other party in the State as none exists there.
Congress, which has of late, sought to resurrect itself in Gujarat is battling a major hurdle of not having adequate organisational network at the district and State level even as it has reached out to Thakor, Hardik Patel and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani. The Congress, which had won 61 assembly seats in 2012, is trying to better its record with Rahul ‘leading from the front’ and attacking BJP’s ‘Vikas agenda.’
From the BJP’s side, Modi, who has, so far, led around half-a-dozen road shows in Gujarat, would be its best bet to lead the party to yet another success in the State and in that case it would be for the sixth time .
Assembly elections in Gujarat will be held on two days, December 9 for 89 assembly seats and December 14 for 93 seats and the results would be announced for all 182 seats on December 18, along with Himachal Pradesh, which votes on November 9.