Gujarat Polls: Significance of 2002, 2012 and 2022

The 2022 Gujarat assembly poll is an electoral experiment that the BJP’s top leadership may like to replicate in the nine assembly elections scheduled over the next 18 months as well as the Lok Sabha elections in 2024. The party insiders say it is aimed at cementing the building blocks for perpetuating the power and myth around Prime Minister Narendra Modi for 2024 and beyond. If the experiment succeeds in Gujarat, it would be bad news for a legion of senior BJP leaders across the country, including in the poll-bound Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. It could also leave the Congress and the other opposition parties in shambles, as the trend of its sitting legislators crossing over to the BJP, as happened in the months leading up to the Gujarat polls, could spread.

The experiment has at least three objectives.

One, purge the party of sitting legislators under the shadow of known instances of moral or financial turpitude. Its candidates, who will get elected on the back of Modi’s popularity rather than their own, should have a clean record to help perpetuate the prime minister’s charisma among the youth and the middle classes. The Congress’s downfall, believe party strategists, started when it was at its most potent in the mid-1970s with the abuse of power that Sanjay Gandhi and his cronies indulged in, denting Indira Gandhi’s image. It is something the BJP, now at the zenith of its sway, hopes to prevent to protect and preserve Modi’s appeal.

Also read | Gujarat: A warm-up march for BJP before LS polls?

Second, handpick younger people committed to “kamal”, the BJP’s lotus election symbol, and Modi’s leadership, rather than to the RSS or the Jan Sangh. For example, several of the 40 sitting MLAs, who were denied tickets in Gujarat, were below 75, with a good track record and chances to win. An example is former chief minister, Vijay Rupani, who is only 66, but is now sitting at home as the party denied him a ticket from his Rajkot West assembly constituency that he had won by a margin of 53,000 votes in 2017. The BJP leaders ask if the argument to deny tickets to sitting MLAs is the need for a generational change, why Yogesh Patel, who is 76, and a seven-term MLA, was allowed to contest from Vadodara’s Manjalpur constituency.

The experiment couldn’t be worse news for Vasundhara Raje, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and hundreds of sitting BJP MLAs and MPs.

Third, where the party knows it cannot win, import combative opposition MLAs and MPs to the BJP’s fold. Party insiders point to the example of Congress’ ten-term MLA from Gujarat’s Chhota Udepur seat, Mohansinh Rathava. The 78-year-old tribal leader joined the BJP earlier this month, and his son is now the BJP candidate for the seat.

The 2022 Gujarat election has a decadal significance in Modi’s political trajectory. The 2002 electoral win, an election Modi forced eight months before schedule, consolidated his position within the Gujarat BJP. A decade later, the 2012 triumph pitchforked him on the national stage as the PM in waiting. The 2022 win, assuming it’s around the corner, would shape the future character of the BJP and India’s democracy. The old-timers in the BJP believe it would also mark the funeral of whatever little inner democracy still existed in their party.