At a brainstorming session of the Gujarat Congress in Dwarka a month ago, Rahul Gandhi reminded his partymen about the fight they put up in the assembly elections five years ago. The Congress made the BJP huff and puff in the home state of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah and restricted it to 99 seats. It was the first time since 1990 that the BJP failed to cross 100 seats in the 182-seat assembly.
The Congress benefitted from anti-incumbency and the Patidar agitation then, but things are a bit different this time around. The results of the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur seem to have reinvigorated the BJP, as Modi received a hero’s welcome at the roadshows in Ahmedabad after the party’s impressive show. His undiminished appeal means the party has won half the battle. It will also benefit from the presence of the Aam Aadmi Party and Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM that would divide the non-BJP votes.
While Modi remains the BJP’s Plan A, B and C in Gujarat, the Congress does not even have a plan. In the past five years, the Congress lost 12 of its MLAs to the BJP. The party is yet to figure out if Hardik Patel, who led the agitation demanding reservations for the Patels in the OBC category and later joined the Congress, is an asset or liability. Patel is working president of Gujarat Congress and many leaders are not happy about the prominence he is getting in the party. Jagdish Thakor, who was appointed state party president a few months ago, is also a lightweight.
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The Congress is still banking on the tribal votes, but that alone will not take it anywhere near victory. The OBC votes are split and Patels mostly vote for the BJP. The party is trying hard to rope in Naresh Patel, a popular Patidar leader from Saurashtra and head of the Shree Khodaldham Trust of Leuva Patels. The AAP also is also talking to him. There is speculation that if Naresh Patel joins the Congress, some former leaders who had quit the party might return.
Manish Doshi, the spokesperson for the state Congress, said the challenge was to reorganise, and address the issues that concern people and go to the masses with an agitation. He alleged that the AAP and the AIMIM were the B teams of the BJP put in place to divide the opposition vote.
There is a huge gap in the party machinery of the BJP and the Congress. While the BJP is always in election mode with systems in place, the Congress often struggles to manage things at the booth level.
That Gujarat is a matter of pride for Modi and Shah will make things even more difficult for the Congress. The BJP is said to be eyeing the record 149 seats won by the Congress under Madhav Singh Solanki in 1985. It might or might not achieve it, but the Congress is in no position to stop it.