The thumping win of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the recently held Gujarat assembly elections has reduced its prime opponent Congress to a historic low. Congress which once had made a record of winning 149 out of 182 seats in 1985 under the leadership of Madhavsinh Solanki had to be content with 17 seats. With no party in the opposition having 10 percent seats, the seat of the leader of the opposition is vacant in the assembly of Gujarat which is the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. It, therefore, becomes evident to look back and take an account of how the oldest party in the Indian polity let itself degrade to an extent where its cadre, which once took inspiration from the moral victory in 2017, is demoralized to a historic low in 2022.
Gujarat is BJP’s strongest fortress
Since 1995, the BJP has won every assembly election in Gujarat. The 27 years of rule by the party have brought lasting peace and development in the state that was once trailed behind on various development parameters. From riots-free harmonious living to increased water table even in the parts of Kutch, BJP has left no stone unturned to ensure that people from all strata of the society upgrade their life in every coming term of the rule.
The industrial and agricultural development of Gujarat under the BJP rule has been phenomenal. Throughout the 27 years, the BJP ensured that hardly there is any anti-incumbency as such n the popular opinion. More credit for this pro-incumbent public opinion goes to Narendra Modi who believed in participative governance while he worked as the chief minister of the state from 2001 to 2014.
The tough battle of 2017
However, despite a good track record of performance by the back-to-back BJP governments in Gujarat, the BJP had to fight a difficult battle in 2017 when it somehow managed to maintain a clear majority with 99 seats in the assembly of 182 member strength of which 92 is the magic figure. Congress won 77 seats in the Gujarat assembly in this election. In the previous election in 2012, the BJP had won 115 seats while Congress had secured 61 seats.
This performance by Congress in 2017 was thus better than the earlier one and relieving sign for the party that was facing continuous defeat against the BJP in various elections. Amit Shah was the BJP president at that time and he had turned the party cadre into a vibrant mechanism that would ensure victory even in the most hostile situations.
Crediting the Gandhi scion for the ‘moral victory’
Though the Congress could not win the Gujarat assembly elections in 2017 and could not snatch the fortress for the BJP, the Congress party and its supporters in the so-called progressive, secular and liberal class of the country painted a picture as if Rahul Gandhi’s leadership has shined like a star (which was rising for the ‘n’th time by then) against the mighty PM Modi in his home state. The defeat of the Congress in the assembly election, however apparently marginal by numbers, was hailed as the ‘moral victory’ of the Congress by this class. As a result, Rahul Gandhi was coronated as the president of the grand old party; seemingly because ‘his efficient leadership’ led the Congress to increase its count in a mid-sized assembly by 16.
This is in sharp contrast with Amit Shah who was made president of the Bharatiya Janata Party after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Amit Shah was made in charge of the biggest state Uttar Pradesh in the run-up to the 2014 general elections. His strategies paid off and the BJP-led NDA got 73 seats in Uttar Pradesh which was not even the home state of the leader.
Was it really Rahul Gandhi’s success in Gujarat?
In the 2017 Gujarat assembly elections, there were other issues faced by the BJP rather than Rahul Gandhi’s so-called ‘effective leadership’ that caused a decrease in the seats. The state was boiling in the heat of the Patidar reservation movement. There were rising young leaders in the state. It consisted of Jignesh Mewani, Alpesh Thakor, and Hardik Patel. All of them eventually joined Congress.
Narendra Modi had left Gujarat and entered Delhi as the Prime Minister. So, Gujarat BJP was trying shuffles to spot an assuring face that will lead from the front. Vijay Rupani was made the chief minister just one and a half years before the elections. So, in a term of five years, Gujarat BJP had effectively given three chief ministers to the state. First, it was Narendra Modi who was reelected to power in 2012 and left midway as he became the Prime Minister in 2014. Then it was Anandiben Patel who was replaced by Vijay Rupani in 2016 as she completed 75 years of her age. These factors contributed a lot to the results of the 2017 elections rather than Rahul Gandhi’s charisma which fails to impress anyone except some old guards of the ancient house of Congress.
Gradual demoralization and the downfall in Gujarat
After 2017, Rahul Gandhi led the Congress party into the 2019 general elections where it miserably failed for the second time. In 2014, it failed against its own incompetencies and the Modi wave. In 2019, five years of performance of the Modi government and the nationalistic sentiment prevailing among the masses made it even worse for the opposition. Rahul Gandhi had to resign from the post of the party president. Sonia Gandhi was called back as the interim president of the party and remained in the post until Mallikarjun Kharge was ‘elected’ as the party president in 2022.
The Congress party did achieve some success in this period, as they won elections in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, and now Himachal Pradesh. The party is also an alliance partner in the Jharkhand, and was part of Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra govt before it was pulled down by rebel Shiv Sena leader and current CM Eknath Shinde. The party lost Punjab to AAP during this period,
What were the BJP and the Modi government doing all this while?
By the time Congress could finalize the president of the party in whatever form it remained after successive defeats, the Narendra Modi government steered the nation through the COVID-19 pandemic, registered record-breaking vaccinations, and also inaugurated many development projects across the country completed at top speed. The Kutch region of Gujarat received tap water for the first time as the Narmada project was completed. Likewise, there were many schemes of the Modi government which benefitted the poor. The pro-incumbency in Gujarat was thus bound to touch astronomical heights. As a result, the BJP won 156 out of 182 seats to break Madhavsinh Solanki’s record.
Rahul Gandhi’s ineffective leadership in the 2022 Gujarat elections buried the party deeper
When the Gujarat assembly elections were approaching, Rahul Gandhi started his Bharat Jodo container Yatra. He started his walk from Kanyakumari to Srinagar. When electoral politics was in full swing in Gujarat, Rahul Gandhi was busy dining with the fathers of various churches in Kerala and Tamilnadu. When party workers in Gujarat were expecting the top leadership to back them and boost them for the upcoming elections, Rahul Gandhi was busy abusing Veer Savarkar as his march passed through Maharashtra. When the campaigning was at its peak in Gujarat, Rahul Gandhi was busy in photoshoots with ‘poor and rich’ who all supported his ‘n plus one’th launch against the mighty king Narendra Modi whom the newly elected Congress president went on to call Ravana during the election campaign.
It was the apathy by the top leadership of the Congress in general and Rahul Gandhi in particular that young leaders like Hardik Patel and Alpesh Thakor joined the BJP and got the tickets and became MLAs while Congress reduced to 17 seats thanks to handpicked rallies held in Gujarat by Rahul Gandhi. Rahul Gandhi ascended to the post of party president in 2017 when his well-wishers discovered a ‘moral victory’ in the sixth consecutive defeat in Gujarat. He leaves the party cadre demoralized after the crushing defeat in 2022 as the BJP registers the seventh victory in a row.