By Rajeev Khanna, IANS
Ahmedabad : Call it a commitment to Mahatma Gandhi’s ideals or plain gimmick, the Congress party released its manifesto for the Gujarat assembly elections at a dhaba in Rajkot district of Saurashtra.
Senior party leader Sushil Kumar Shinde was quick to point out: “We have always followed the principles of Mahatma Gandhi. I feel happy releasing the manifesto in a dhaba instead of a five star hotel.”
Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel are two historical figures whose ideals every political party in Gujarat claims to be following, at least for the sake of public consumption. Public functions of political parties are never complete unless references have been made to the two leaders.
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Chief Minister Narendra Modi is perhaps the most talked about man in the poll campaign. The issue of dissidence in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is being discussed at length in Saurashtra as most dissidents are from this region.
The dissidents and those who support them are quick to convey that they are only against Modi and those in the head office in New Delhi who support him and have turned a deaf ear to their grievances over the last five years.
A dissident leader has come up with a mathematical formula to explain the situation in the BJP: “Narendra Modi plus Sangh Parivar minus his ego equals excellence, excellence and excellence.”
But he is quick to qualify the sentence: “What exactly is happening is Modi plus ego minus Parivar equals disaster.”
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Rajkot is the nerve centre of Saurashtra, which is witnessing the stiffest electoral contest in Gujarat. It also happens to be a place where there are several evening papers. With elections round the corner, their demand keeps soaring.
What puzzles an outsider is how evening dailies thrive in a city that is much smaller than the metros where such papers are generally a success.
The answer came from an old timer who has worked in one such daily: “The question was asked by a very senior editor coming from Delhi. He was told that Rajkot has a culture where people must have their afternoon siesta.
“When people wake up twice during 24 hours, they also have to read papers twice, a habit that comes naturally.”
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Narendra Modi may be a crowd-puller, but for old timers of Saurashtra the BJP campaign is incomplete unless it is laced with the oratory of Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
People in the cities of Saurashtra can be heard discussing the skills of Vajpayee as they wait at election rallies. They tell one another what Vajpayee had said when he toured their constituencies in the past.
Some of them have been complaining that the BJP should at least be playing the recorded speeches of Vajpayee at rallies.
(Rajeev Khanna can be contacted at [email protected])