Not So Fast, Rahul

Buoyed by anti-incumbency and caste dissatisfaction, is the Congress being too optimistic about its appeal to Gujarati voters?

- Uday Mahurkar

Party workers and volunteers are flocking towards the Gujarat Pradesh Congress office in Ahmedabad’s affluent Paldi area. For the first time in the last three state elections, the Congress believes it has a genuine chance when polls open on December 9 to defeat the BJP. Rahul Gandhi has been drawing large crowds. And part of the confidence also stems from the potential effect on the elections of three young disruptors—Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakore and Jignesh Mevani—who command significant followings in their respective castes and are opposed to the BJP.

Is the BJP in trouble in a state it has controlled, except for a brief, negligible period, since 1995? Rajdeep Sardesai, consulting editor at the India Today Group, argues that “only anger can unseat the BJP in Gujarat and at the moment there is unhappiness at most rather than outright anger”. Veteran Gujarati journalist Kanti Patel, who has been covering state elections for 35 years, is even more dismissive. “There might be anti-incumbency against the BJP,” he says. “But with Narendra Modi as the party’s face, the BJP will win comfortably. The only thing that the party has to guard against is its apparent arrogance.”

The obstacles to a Congress win are significant.

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