Mayawati vs Moditva vs 123…

The Gujarat assembly elections hold great significance for Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi and Mayawati, who have their eyes on greater glories. But in politics, the art of the possible can be a big if

Vijay Sanghvi Delhi

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi seems well prepared for the December assembly elections in Gujarat. He has evolved a campaign strategy to beat his detractors within the BJP and the Congress. He is even more prepared now that the Congress has decided to present him with a visible and rather vulnerable enemy in Rahul Gandhi to vent his ire and his acidic barbs at.

Modi has managed to put together his list of achievements with a certificate from multinational Ernst &Young and a booklet highlighting his 'Initiatives for Inclusive Growth'.  It is a long list of claims and his detractors within  either  the  BJP or Congress are  unlikely to challenge or disprove all of them.

He has also been working on his election strategy long before any of the others. His little booklet was released just four days before the Election Commission's announcement of poll dates in Gujarat, depriving his opponents of an opportunity to complain about a violation of the code of conduct that comes into force with the announcement of election dates. Essentially, Modi used government money to advertise his achievements.

He commissioned international consultants at the World Economic Forum in China that he had attended leading a delegation of industrialists. The firm was ready with the reportage for release on October 6 at Delhi. At the release function, former union minister and ex-journo Arun Shourie even pompously declared that Modi is basically prime ministerial material.

The Congress high command decided to run Rahul Gandhi as its potential candidate for the office of the prime minister by assigning him a difficult political task as the star campaigner for the party in the Gujarat polls. As Modi is an astute communicator, Rahul Gandhi would need an equally formidable think-tank to equip him with special communication skills. But the think-tank would also need to provide him ways and means to ensure that the UP Chief Minister Mayawati does not become a spoilsport for the Congress by chipping away a large portion of the Congress votes.

The media has made much of the Modi detractors within the BJP, with former chief minister Keshubhai Patel leading a band of dissidents who want Modi removed from Gujarat as he has been openly behaving like a dictator and does not show respect for anyone. The other complaint against Modi was that he had forgotten the Hindutva mantra using which he had won an absolute majority in the last assembly elections.

Their complaint is that Modi has concentrated on wooing Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and tribals at the expense of the upper castes. The dissidents initiated their public agitation against Modi by organising the Patels on one platform, but soon realised that it was a wrong move as all anti-Patel forces were being pushed into the lap of Modi. Keshubhai Patel led a large anti-Modi rally of farmers at Rajkot but it failed to cut ice with the party high command despite the fact that there is no love lost between BJP chief Rajnath Singh and Modi, who is considered to be the first disciple and loyalist of the former union home minister Lal Krishna Advani.

Despite all the hue and cry by dissidents, they cannot do any serious damage to Modi. Dissidents are not equipped with evidence to disprove Modi's claims of achievements because he apparently planned his schemes to identify and satisfy the less privileged like women, fisher-folk and tribals. They constitute a large chunk in the total electorate and seem to be moving towards the Congress. Modi is ardently wooing them.

He has handed over rights deeds of forest land to tribal communities. He found an effective campaign point when the Supreme Court restrained him from distributing the rights deeds. Modi needs to make heavy inroads in the tribal belt as the Congress won back three of the four seats reserved for scheduled tribes during the 2004 Lok Sabha polls and one in south Gujarat with a margin of 15 per cent. The Congress has no convincing argument to explain why it had not framed the rules for enactment of tribal rights that was adopted by Parliament in 2005.

Rahul Gandhi might draw crowds as he did during his campaign in UP early this year. However, the party structure in Gujarat is weak. It is faction-ridden with different kinds of claimants for the top positions. Rahul Gandhi and his advisers would have to concentrate more on ensuring that Mayawati does not do huge damage. Elements of uncertainty would now loom large as the state Congress is waiting for a few dissatisfied BJP lead are likely to be denied nominations) to fall into its lap. But what will the Congress do with the likes of Gordhan Zadaphia and other Hindutva stalwarts,  directly involved in the Gujarat carnage of 2002, remains a  mystery.  Will it yet again choose brazen opportunism and expose its 'pseudo secularism'?

The Gujarat polls is important for Mayawati's BSP as it provides an opportunity to spread her influence beyond UP and win the status of a national party. She has decided to field candidates for all 182 seats and hopes to encash on her successful 'social engineering' process of a 'sandwich coalition of castes' as in UP. She is a symbol of confidence for Dalits, even some upper castes now, and she provides a better alternative to the Muslims in the state, even while the Congress seems to have totally betrayed the minority community.

The Congress has made no overt efforts to seek justice after the 2004 communal carnage lest it annoys the majority community. The Muslims have been brutally left to fend for themselves. Modi has not mentioned them derogatorily (Miyas should go to Pakistan, etc) in his melodramatic public orations through the last year for he seems eager to obliterate his anti-Muslim image and sell the concept of a vikas purush. Muslims in Gujarat would certainly not like to go anywhere near Modi, but a cold-blooded Congress also is not a preferred alternative.

The chief minister annoyed the hardcore Sangh Parivar votaries in the state (such as Praveen Togadia of the VHP) as he shifted his emphasis to economic factors and politically side-lined them to exert his own Hindutva supremacy. His list of claims contains only the economic development initiatives for he apparently feels that young people are not enamoured by religious fervour or fanaticism. The emphasis of Ernst & Young reportage is on four aspects of his regime: good governance, wealth creation, human resources development and general well-being of the society. Religion figures nowhere.

The Gujarat assembly polls assume significance as it would set new parameters of governance as Modi is trying to overcome the impact of the anti-incumbency factor and the Tehelka sting. Cynics argue that the sting might actually consolidate his fanatic Hindutva mass base. Rahul Gandhi is tentative and rather unsure in the first lap of his run for the top job. Mayawati is a potential dark horse in case of a hung Parliament. With Lok Sabha polls looming large, Gujarat might be the sign of things to come.