Gujarat - Can BJP Hold The Fort?

The Ruling Party Scrambles To Beat Anti-incumbency In Poll-bound Gujarat, While The Congress Struggles To Get Its Act Together And Aap Hopes To Do Better

- Kiran D. Tare in Ahmedabad

BJP state president C.R. Patil is ambitious. He is on a mission to surpass the Congress’s 1985 record, when the party under Madhavsinh Solanki won 149 out of 182 seats. No party has touched this magic number since—not even under the almost decade and a half of Narendra Modi’s rule as chief minister. But the BJP did achieve its highest tally so far under Modi—127 seats in 2002. For Patil and the BJP, Gujarat is a mustwin battle as the PM’s reputation is at stake. Patil is working on all fronts to ensure success, even willing to deviate from his earlier stand that nobody from the Congress would be inducted in the BJP. Among those he won over from the Congress is Jayraj Singh Parmar, a former spokesperson for the party, who joined the BJP in February and can influence 4-5 assembly constituencies in Mehsana district of north Gujarat. Many more defectors are likely to be welcomed.

Apart from these moves, Patil is relying on the BJP’s strong organisational network to beat anti-incumbency. Pradeepsinh Vaghela, the 41-year-old BJP general secretary, keeps tabs on the support base, sitting in the party headquarters in Gandhinagar. He says the ‘panna pramukh (page committee)’ system has been a robust mechanism to consolidate supporters. Each page of the voters’ list has 30 names, and a committee of five party workers is supposed to monitor them. “We have a target of appointing 71 lakh page committee members. At present, we have 62 lakh,” says Vaghela, a firebrand next generation leader. “We will have 35 lakh active workers encouraging voters to vote for BJP.” The party has also made a list of ‘