Ever since Gujarat attained Statehood in 1960, State Assembly elections have never been uninteresting even when they appear to be lackluster or clearly lop-sided. And this holds true even after 2001 when Narendra Modi emerged on the political scene. Despite his massive popularity, the elections he won in 2002, 2007, and 2012 were not simply open-and-shut cases. He continued campaigning as the star campaigner even in 2017 and does that more vigorously even now in 2022 as well, not resting on his laurels.
The elections for constituting the 15th Assembly of Gujarat with 182 seats, were announced on November 3. Of these 13 seats are reserved for the Scheduled Castes and 27 for the Scheduled Tribes. The state is estimated to have crossed the 7 crore population mark in 2022, though official numbers put it under 6.5 crores, with over 4.91 crore voters.
A total of 3.25 lakh new voters have been added to the tally this year. It will go to poll for the first phase on December 1, followed by the second phase on December 5. The results are expected on December 8, as the entire electoral exercise has to be completed before December 10, 2022.
BJP managed to win 99 of 182 seats in the 2017 polls, with Congress winning 77. However, in subsequent years, the BJP managed to take its tally up to the current number of 111 with defections from Congress and by-elections, whereas Congress’ numbers dropped to 60 as of now.
But the polls this time were appearing to be all set to be borderline uninteresting, just about a month prior to the EC’s announcement of the dates. Mainly, because Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was all over the state, addressing inaugural and dedication events for various state and central government projects. And the opposition was not much visible to take on him. It was the emergence of a third force rather than the main opposition rising to the occasion as a challenger, that re-energized the poll scene.
The number of visits the PM made to Gujarat in the past few months, before the announcement of election dates, must be a record of sorts, for any Prime Minister to visit a state and address gatherings.
But except for a few scattered statements and one-off rallies and public meets, the Congress or any other opposition was not posing as a challenger to Modi’s reign in Gujarat - anywhere on the horizon. It was sometime in the month of August that the Aam Admi Party (AAP) emerged and became visible as a serious player in this election, filling in the void of an energetic opposition party.
Congress was until now the main challenger to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to which it ceded ground in 1995. However, the lack of a concerted attempt by the party to claim the state back, coupled with the absence of a clear leadership face, led to its steady decline in the subsequent local polls. And it was in this vacuum scenario that AAP found a toe-hold at the right time and started growing its roots.
Learning from the mistakes of Congress, which never projected a single face as its chief ministerial candidate, AAP announced its chief ministerial candidate – Isudan Gadhvi, a popular Gujarati TV news channel (VTV) anchor, turned politician. This was interesting as BJP had not yet spoken about who will be its Chief Minister if it retained power. Though on Tuesday, November 15, Union Home Minister and BJP leader Amit Shah spoke at an event that “If BJP gets a majority, Bhupendra Patel will continue to be the Chief Minister.”
The 2017 election turned out to be quite tougher for BJP than it was expected to be. It was the whirlwind campaigning by PM Modi on a very emotional note, in the last two weeks, across Gujarat, that saved the day for his party. Anti-incumbency and a host of other issues damaged his party’s tally. Remembering the lessons learned from 2017 and keeping in mind that in five more years anti-incumbency can have a deeper impact, BJP clearly has been seen working very hard to retain power.
But a glance at the past elections and one can say why Gujarat has a legacy of turning every election into an interesting one. In 1960, after the State was formed, the first election took place in 1962, for 154 seats of the Assembly - the first for the state which was born out of linguistic restructuring. Congress came to power. But Gujarat’s second Chief Minister Balwantrai Mehta died in 1965 when his plane was shot down by Pakistani forces near Kutch border. Hitendra Desai who replaced him, got elected in the subsequent 1967 elections, however, in 1971 President’s rule was imposed. There have been four spells of President’s Rule in Gujarat, including one in the Emergency period.
Chimanbhai Patel who got elected in 1973, was dislodged soon due to Navnirman Andolan (Reconstruction agitation), mainly a student-led movement against corruption. It was in June 1975, when Babubhai Jasbhai Patel led ‘Janta Morcha’ formed the first non-Congress government in the state. A few months after he came to power, Emergency was declared in the country
However, it was in 1980 that Madhavsinh Solanki-led Congress came to power and bettered its own record in 1985 with 149 seats, which is the highest ever for any party in Gujarat. The credit for his success is given to his social engineering theory and vote bank experiment labeled as ‘KHAM - Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi and Muslims’. However, what brought Solanki to power also led to his downfall.
It is believed that this was the turning point for Gujarat politics and this axis of castes that directly helped Congress in the 1980s, indirectly helped BJP more from 1990s onwards. The restructuring of vote bank on caste lines by Congress led to the most influential Patel vote bank moving out of the Congress fold. This switch and other upper caste votes helped the saffron forces to eventually turn Gujarat into a ‘Hindutva laboratory’ and that gave rise to religion politics.
After the highest-ever seat record in 1985 with 149 seats, in 1990 Congress set another record - of its lowest ever with 33 seats. Since then, Congress has never again seen a Chief Minister of its own or power of its own. It did succeed in brief spells of power by partnering with other parties. It was in the 1990 Assembly election that Chimanbhai Patel came back to power riding on Janata Dal this time, with the help of the Bharatiya Janata Party. BJP’s journey to power in Gujarat has been very interesting.
It was in 1980 that BJP won nine seats in the Gujarat Assembly elections. In 1985, the KHAM factor brought its tally down to 11. But in 1990, it got 67 seats - more than double the tally of Congress. It's been over three decades since then, but BJP has succeeded in retaining its lead over Congress. So it was no surprise that in 1995 BJP came to power with 121 seats under the stewardship of Keshubhai Patel. But in the succeeding three years, Gujarat saw three Chief Ministers - Patel, Shankersinh Vaghela and Dilip Parikh.
The rebellion of Shankersinh led to the formation of his short-lived Rashtriya Janata Party which eventually ended up in a merger with Congress. This forced a mid-term poll in 1998, bringing Keshubhai back to power with 117 seats. With Keshubhai’s popularity facing setbacks after the 2001 earthquake, Narendra Modi was chosen to replace him. It was believed that this arrangement will be until the Assembly elections scheduled in 2002.
But the Gujarat riots in February 2002, changed Indian politics forever. The year 2002 saw Modi winning with 127 seats, the highest ever for BJP until then and a record that has not been surpassed even now. Interestingly as Modi’s popularity continues to soar nationally, Congress’ seats have continued to go up in every poll from 1990 - from 33 in 1990 to 45 in 1995, 53 in 1998, 51 in 2002 - the year of post-Godhra riots, 59 in 2007, 60 in 2012 and 77 in 2017. The only exception was 2002 when it got marginally less than the previous term.
