Gujarat Polls: Congress Looks to OBC, Tribal Vote Bank While BJP Woos Patels and Tribals

Ahmedabad: Around nine months after the Gujarat Congress’s top two positions went vacant, the party leadership has appointed former Member of Parliament Jagdish Thakor, as the president of Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) and MLA Sukhram Rathva as the Leader of Opposition (LOP) in the state Assembly. 

With just a year to go for state polls, both the BJP and Congress have turned to consolidating their traditional vote banks. While the BJP replaced its Chief Minister (Vijay Rupani) with Bhupendra Patel, a Patidar along with new faces in the ministries, the Congress has brought in OBC leader Jagdish Thakor as its state chief and tribal leader Sukhram Rathva as its leader in the Assembly.

Thakor, who hails from Kankrej taluka in Banaskantha, resides in Ahmedabad, had won from Patan constituency in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections by over 2.8 lakh votes. He has also been a two-term MLA from Dahegam constituency. Rathva, the sitting MLA from Jetpur, had won his seat by over 60,000 votes in 2017. 

The move also comes at a time when Congress is at its lowest morale with consecutive debacles in local body, civic body elections and the bypolls. The party that performed well mostly in the rural belts of Gujarat in 2017 Assembly elections seems to have lost its grasp over its constituencies. In the local body polls held earlier this year, Congress could manage to win only 1,805 out of 8,470 seats. 

Moreover, Congress has lost a dozen MLAs to BJP since 2017 and its veteran leader Ahmed Patel to Covid-19 in 2020. 

However, in a show of strength, 64-year-old Thakor and Rathva went into election mode even as they took their respective charges amid a huge gathering of supporters, members and leaders at the party's headquarters in Ahmedabad. 

While the Congress leaders criticised the BJP government saying that "rubber stamp Vijay Rupani" and his group of ministers were sacked as the BJP senses a defeat in 2022, Thakor in his speeches, focused on agrarian issues and talked about a “roadmap” to launch a poll campaign. 

Congress’s experiment to keep Patidar votes by bringing in Hardik Patel and OBC votes by bringing in Alpesh Thakor in its fold failed when Thakor ditched the party and joined BJP. Meanwhile, Hardik's move to join Congress seems to have alienated him from his community. 

Notably, Jagdish Thakor had resigned from all party posts in 2016 and decided that he would work as an ordinary worker when Congress had chosen Alpesh Thakor as its face from among the OBC community.  

The party won 77 out of 182 seats in 2017 state polls, its highest since 1995 by largely banking on the anti-incumbency factor against BJP, the aftereffect of 2015 Patidar agitation, and agrarian distress that had the rural voters feel disenchanted with the ruling party. 

BJP had secured 99 seats in 2017 state polls, its lowest ever in the history of Gujarat Assembly polls. The party has been tryin to woo Patidars, its traditional vote base in the state since the last Assembly polls. Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, the BJP government in Gujarat saw an expansion in which six Patidar leaders had joined ministries. Earlier this year, seven Patidar leaders from Gujarat were inducted into the central Cabinet following its expansion.

Despite its performance at the local and civic body polls earlier this year, the party has also been making moves to woo the tribals, as it anticipates a lash back owing to the mismanagement of the pandemic in the state – especially during the second wave. Apart from this, farmers’ issues also remain a hurdle for BJP especially in rural areas. 

In his first press conference after taking over as the GPCC chief, Jagdish Thakor hit at the ruling party over COVID-19 mismanagement and claimed, “Lakhs of people died during the pandemic in Gujarat due to lack of facilities, oxygen and medicine. Yet, the ruling government does not want to reveal the correct number of deaths or tests. During the Nyaya Yatra conducted by the party, the party workers met almost one lakh families who had lost at least one person to Covid-19.  As per our information, over three lakh people have died due to Covid-19 in Gujarat and the government continues to claim that there were only 10,000 deaths. There are 22,000 claims for ex gratia that have been sanctioned until now and there are more in the waiting.”

Notably, both Congress and BJP have swung into action ahead of the Assembly polls 2022 after the Aam Aadmi Party secured a major win in Surat civic body polls. AIMIM, too, has been trying to make its way into Gujarat politics by pushing for the Muslim voters in the state.

Owaisi's All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) marked its debut in Gujarat polls by winning seven seats in the civic body of Ahmedabad earlier this year. Adding to that, AIMIM’s support to a group of 17 independent candidates in Godhra municipality, the epicentre of 2002 riots, stopped BJP from returning to power despite winning 18 out of 44 seats. 

Aam Aadmi Party on the other hand, banked on disgruntlement of Patidar youth with both BJP and Congress to perform well in Surat civic polls and emerge as the opposition party. 

On December 14, the Gujarat police launched an inquiry into a paper leak claim by AAP’s youth wing. The recruitment examination for 186 vacancies was conducted by Gujarat Subordinate Service Selection Board (GSSSB) on December 12. The next day, Yuvrajsinh Jadeja, Vice-President of Gujarat Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) youth wing, claimed that the question paper was leaked a night before the exam and sold at Rs 6-12 lakh across the state. 

Advent of AIMIM and AAP in Gujarat electoral politics has forced both BJP and Congress to walk an extra mile – beyond wooing their traditional vote banks. 

While BJP is trying to woo the tribals, the Congress is looking at the dalit vote bank apart from its traditional OBC, tribal and Muslim voters. Last month, Jignesh Mevani, the independent dalit MLA from Vadgam joined the party. In 2017 polls, Congress had supported Mevani by taking back their winning candidate and veteran dalit leader from North Gujarat, Manibhai Vaghela. However, Vaghela quit the party after Mevani joined Congress and is reportedly in talks with the BJP.