By Rajeev Khanna, IANS
Rajkot : The acrimonious campaign for the first phase of the Gujarat elections Tuesday is over and all eyes are now on Saurashtra, where the caste equations will possibly decide who will rule the state.
Saurashtra, the drought-prone arid region that has given birth to personalities such as Mahatma Gandhi and Mohammed Ali Jinnah, has 52 assembly seats. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 37 of them in 2002.
Patels in this region, the politically most influential caste, were strongly behind the BJP for more than two decades. That is no longer the case.
To begin with, there has been a vertical split in the Patel community in the region. The Leuva Patels are opposed to the BJP but the Kadwa Patels are still with the party, according to observers.
The Leuva Patels turned away from the BJP in October 2001 when the party replaced then chief minister Keshubhai Patel with Narendra Modi.
Keshubhai Patel has since emerged as the rallying point of the growing ranks of BJP dissidents who are unhappy with Modi’s “autocratic style” of working.
The veteran Patel has stopped short of quitting the party but he is not campaigning for the BJP and has, in fact, appealed voters to defeat “autocrats”.
The landed community of Patels comprise approximately 40 percent of electorate in the region. Some say almost 60 percent have turned against the BJP.
The infighting amongst the BJP has turned out to be the biggest morale booster for the Congress.
The second largest caste block is that of Kolis, traditionally supporters of the Congress who comprise 15-17 percent of the electorate and are dominant in several pockets.
While a number of Koli leaders like Purshottam Solanki are with the BJP, the Congress has been reminding the community that those behind the rape and murder of a Koli girl in Junagarh – a sensitive issue – earlier this year are yet to be booked.
The Darbar community, traditional Congress supporters, always had strained relations with Patels. Some of them are expected to go away from the Congress this time on account of the party’s overtures to the Patels, feel observers.
Narendrasinh Jadeja, a senior Congress leader from Rajkot, says: “It’s a well-known maxim that an enemy’s enemy is a friend. But such things will not affect our performance this time, though it may have a little impact in some places.”
Dalits and minorities have traditionally been Congress voters in the region but what remains to be seen is whether they turn out in large numbers to vote.
On the other hand, the BJP has a support base among upper caste Hindus – Brahmins, Baniyas and Lohanas. The number of voters from these castes might be less individually but taken together they are capable of being a major force.
Nitin Bharadwaj, the BJP president in Rajkot, does not think the caste factor, apparently weighed against his party, will make any impact.
“Our experience is that caste does not matter much as compared to the party, its performance and programmes.”
That may be true in that the political parties, well aware of the caste power, have resorted to pitting candidates of the same community against each other.
If the Congress has fielded a Koli for a seat, the BJP has also fielded a candidate from the same community for the same seat, seemingly to neutralise the caste factor to some extent.
The parties feel that the voters will go according to the candidate’s individual hold over the electorate — apart from the larger issues.