By Ashish Mehta, IANS
Ahmedabad : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), thanks to Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s mix of Hindutva and economic reforms, has further strengthened its hold over Gujarat by winning the state elections again, continuing its nearly unbroken record since 1995 – a rarity in India.
Few parties except the Left Front in West Bengal are successful at retaining power in a state.
The BJP first came to power in Gujarat March 14, 1995 when Modi was the general secretary of the state unit and largely credited for the victory. Playing the role of the kingmaker, he chose Keshubhai Patel, a veteran from Saurashtra, as chief minister over Shankarsinh Vaghela.
An angry Vaghela led a rebellion in the BJP, resulting in arguably the only split in the party. His Rashtriya Janata Party ruled the state between October 1996 and March 1998 – with him as chief minister initially, followed by his confidant Dilip Parikh – as the Congress supported the breakaway faction. Vaghela soon merged his party with the Congress.
In March 1998, the BJP returned to power under Patel’s leadership though Modi by then was taken out of Gujarat for what many saw as his divide and rule policy within the organisation.
Patel, who had earlier served as irrigation minister in the Janata Party government in the late 1970s, led the party to power again. The BJP, However, found itself facing anti-incumbency in 2001 when it lost local body elections to the Congress.
A frenetic central leadership began the hunt for a successor to Patel. Several candidates including former chief minister Suresh Mehta were informally interviewed at the Delhi headquarters before they decided to put Modi in charge.
A dynamic leader, Modi announced after his oathtaking Oct 6, 2001 that he was here to play a “one-day cricket match”.
The BJP still might have had a tough time in the 2002 polls but for the communal divide after sectarian strife, triggered by the Godhra train burning tragedy.
Amid allegations of bias against the Muslim community, Modi, a former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) pracharak, took a hardline Hindutva stance and reaffirmed the party’s ideology that had taken a back seat.
Though he led the party to its highest tally in Gujarat with 127 seats in the 182-member assembly, the party legislators as well as the two former BJP chief ministers soon accused him of running the government without taking them into confidence.
Even sections of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad were upset with Modi, and so were many leading saffron-robed Hindu monks who saw in him a betrayer of the Hindu cause.
It was this all-round rebellion that made winning the 2007 election all the more challenging for Modi, but he has delivered once again.
In the process, he has changed political equations in the state.
The Congress, under then chief minister Madhavsinh Solanki, had depended on its “KHAM formula” – focusing on the key support groups of Kshatriyas, Harijans, Adivasis and Muslims.
It tried to resurrect the formula in 2007 but has clearly failed to revive caste equations.
Though Modi hails from Other Backward Classes (OBCs), an influential segment, he has instead banked on his personal charisma, fiery oratory and achievements in the developmental sphere while never veering away from the core ideology of Hindu nationalism.
While his politics always had takers among the educated urban middle class of Gujarat and its Diaspora abroad, it has also made a dent in the rural pockets and Congress strongholds like the tribal belt along Bujarat’s border with Madhya Pradesh.
The BJP, still smarting under its lacklustre showing in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous and politically key state in the country, would like to replicate the lessons of Moditva – Hindutva mixed with neo-liberal economics – at the national level ahead of the general elections due in 2009.