How Modi wave swamped Gujarat's 'three musketeers'

One is from the Other Backward Class (OBC), the other one is a dalit and the third one from powerful Patidar community. While they fought for the rights of the communities to which they belong, there were a couple of things that bound them with a single thread—they spoke for the poor and the marginalized and caught national attention. 

In the political arena, where one is often fed up with stale ideas and seeing same old faces, Alpesh Thakore, Hardik Patel and Jignesh Mevani, all from Ahmedabad, had infused fresh air and held a lot of promises until 2019 Lok Sabha elections were announced.

They had become household names all over the country. If Patel's claim to fame was spearheading Patidar agitation in Gujarat to get reservation, Mevani spoke about dalit rights and worked for the dalits to enable them to get, physically, the already allotted pieces of land. Thakore and his Kshatriya Thakore Sena campaigned for effective prohibition in Gujarat, helping youngsters get out of vices and find jobs. 

The trio often lashed out at the BJP government in Gujarat and the NDA from a common platform. However, they uniting once again in future seems unlikely with the changed political circumstances forcing Thakore to swallow his words and join the BJP. About a month and a half ago, he resigned from the Congress and on July 5, he resigned as MLA. He had won from Radhanpur, North Gujarat on a Congress ticket. 

When Gujarat went to polls in 2017, with the BJP fighting the elections for the first time after Narendra Modi moved to New Delhi as the prime minister, the trio played a major role in a mass awakening of sorts. Albeit, not everything translated into votes and helped the Congress topple the BJP from its citadel. The BJP narrowly managed to form the government once again.

This now is a thing of the past. 

Thakore has changed colour. Even remaining in the Congress, Patel has been touring villages on his own and Mevani feels suffocated as he is not able to speak in the Assembly. 

This is also a reflection of the extent to which the opposition Congress is decimated in Gujarat. 

If Patel's clout has been affected after he joined the Congress, Thakore now probably does not command as much weightage as he used to earlier. 

Always seen as an opportunist, Thakore has joined the BJP and it is heard through the grapevine that he may be made a minister in the Vijay Rupani-led cabinet. All this with the BJP eyeing sizable OBC votes in the 2022 Assembly elections. 

Denying allegations that he is an opportunist, Thakore tells THE WEEK that his joining the BJP is out of compulsion. “For the people whom I work, government's blessings and cooperation is needed,” he says, adding that a lot can be done if the government's support is even 25 per cent. 

Ever since he joined the Congress in the last quarter of 2017 at a mega rally in the presence of party leader Rahul Gandhi in Gandhinagar, this 43-year-old had always kept the Congress on tenterhooks. 

The talk was always “will he be with the Congress or the BJP?”. His image took a beating in a section of the OBCs, who have been traditionally voting for the Congress even before his advent. 

BJP sources say that Thakore's bargaining power has certainly decreased and it is not without a reason that the party fielded Jugal Thakore, another OBC leader, in the by-poll to Rajya Sabha. Party insiders say that was a clear signal for Thakore to stay in his limits. 

Alleging that the members of his community do not get respect in the Congress, he says the party is faction-ridden and instead of digesting the defeat, it has put the blame on him and his community. Thakore also says that he wants to work on de-addiction in his community apart from improving their education standard and ensuring that they get good jobs and benefits of government schemes. 

Ironically, soon after joining the Congress he was made AICC secretary and co-in-charge of the party for Bihar. He was also taken in various committees set up in Gujarat before the Lok Sabha elections. 

Thakore is unsure whether he would get respect in the BJP. Replying to a question on this, he says, “At least, I will get work as per my capabilities”. 

“The Congress has people with weak mentality. For my people power is necessary,” he asserts, trying to defend himself by saying that he had joined the Congress in the days of its struggle. He even says that he has left behind poor school and poor teachers, and joined “Gurukul” (read BJP). 

Thakore is also fully aware that the BJP will use him to get OBC votes in 2022 Assembly elections. He does not mind, though. If you are joining a party, the party should benefit, he asserts, remarking that it is called correct use of capacities. 

Unlike Thakore, Mevani is happy being an independent MLA. “Had I wanted, I could have joined any party and I would have got the safest Lok Sabha seat. My career would have been set,” he tells THE WEEK 

Being happy as an independent MLA does not mean that things are well at his end. Mevani says that he feels suffocated when he is not allowed to speak in the Assembly. “No time is given for an independent MLA to speak, this is even when the Congress is ready to give the time from its quota,” he points out. 

“I want to speak on various issues like the fact that the minimum work guarantee scheme in Gujarat has an allocation of only Rs 460 crore, which means that each of the 18,000 villages would get only Rs 25,000,” he says. 

He says he is baffled with 2019 Lok Sabha results. “The results do not sound convincing to me at all. I am trying to get a sense of that,” he says. “Even if there was Pulwama sentiment, even if the opposition was incapable, which it turned out to be, such a large number of seats...,” he exclaimed. “It should have been somewhere around 2014 results. But this shows that suddenly there is so much love for Modi,” he says.

On the personal front he has received the fourth threat call since he won from Vadgam, North Gujarat. Attacks on dalits, across the state, have continued unabated. Mevani says that neither the threat calls to him have been properly investigated nor has the police played a preventive role in attacks on dalits. The independent MLA alleges that the Gujarat police has failed to protect dalits, especially when in almost all the cases of the recent past, the victims had told the police that there was a possibility that they would be attacked. 

But he is determined to fight. He says that he will continue to raise voice for the dalits and other weaker and marginalized sections, and spend at least 12 days, every month, in his constituency. He and his team are planning to enable women to get government wasteland in their names. 

Like Mevani, Patel, too, says that he is to keep working. Apart from traveling across the country, Patel has taken it upon himself to travel in 7,000 out of the 18,000 villages of Gujarat in two years to know the problems of the people and try and bring about a solution. This he will do as an individual and not as a Congressman. 

At a time when it is a season of resignations in the Congress, Patel says that he has no regrets of having joined the party. “My ideology matched with the ideology of Gandhiji, Nehru, Sardar Patel.....,” he says, adding that it does not match with the BJP's ideology. 

“I would have regretted if I had done bargaining and joined the party,” he says, indirectly referring to Thakore joining the BJP. “You are ditching people,” he alleges. 

He personally feels that Rahul Gandhi should not have resigned as Congress president and even if he wanted to, he should have planned and done it. He tells THE WEEK that what is happening in Karnataka and Goa appears that it is due to lack of leadership.

The 25-year-old firebrand leader alleges that in the last few years, Modi and the RSS have systematically targeted all the leaders of the opposition, “may that be Sonia, Rahul, Priyanka, Mulayam.....” In doing so, the workers get demoralized, he points out. 

Patel feels that like in 2004 and 2009, it is time to revive the NSUI (student wing of the Congress party), women's wing and the Seva Dal by bringing new members. 

Even as he works at an individual level, Patel says he is ready to take up any responsibility of the Congress that comes his way. He says that the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti will remain in existence till the cases filed against Patels, in connection with violence of 2015, are not solved. With the government giving reservation to the EBC, the demand for reservation does not stand. Patel, however, firmly says that they would want a survey of Patels to be done and reservation given on the lines of what Maharashtra has done for Marathas. 

He clearly says that he does not want to be identified in the trio. He has his own reasoning for it and asks whether an analysis has been done as to who among the three could make a difference.

Sources close to Patel say that he has been doing work at an individual level so that people from various walks of life can join hands, without fear that they would be seen under the Congress umbrella. 

Patel had given sleepless nights to the strong BJP government in Gujarat and it was being said that Anandiben Patel had to resign as the chief minister due to her alleged inapt handling of the Patidar stir. However, she had cited “age criterion” to step down. The BJP all along had alleged a Congress hand behind Patel. 

As one of the three told THE WEEK, an ideal situation would have been that they launched a common front with the support of the Congress. That was not to happen with their own aspirations and egos coming in way.

The trio only gave good photo opportunities and working together might remain a dream only.