Modi wave saves BJP's blushes in Gujarat as Congress makes big gains

Election Result

"Param sukh", or immense comfort, is how Prime Minister Narendra Modi had described his party’s chances in the Gujarat assembly polls at a Diwali get together with media persons here on October 29. In the event, the Gujarat election Result campaign was anything but comfortable for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

On Monday morning, as the election results trickled in and BJP inched to the majority mark of 92 in the 182-member Gujarat assembly, the PM signaled a ‘victory’ sign to the throng of television cameras and photographers as he entered Parliament to attend the winter session.

At 67, Modi led a grueling blitzkrieg of public meetings – a total of 34 public rallies and some road shows, including his famous ride on a seaplane on December 12. In hindsight, the PM’s entreaties to the people of Gujarat that he was a son of the soil helped the party overcome significant disaffection and score a sixth successive win in the state.

On the ground, the BJP battled intense anti-incumbency – farm distress, anger among traders over demonetisation and goods and services tax (GST), the gaping holes in the so called ‘Gujarat model of development’, lack of jobs for youth, emergence of caste leaders – Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mevani – who challenged Modi and Shah the way state Congress leaders had seldom and a revitalized Congress under its President Rahul Gandhi.

In places like Saurashtra, the epicentre of the Patidar movement, wounds were fresh of the 14 of their community boys killed and the ‘insult’ meted out to former chief minister Anandiben Patel. The anger against leadership of Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and his benefactor and party chief Amit Shah, was palpable.

A few hours after it became evident that the BJP would comfortably cross the majority mark, former BJP president and union minister Nitin Gadkari tweeted: "(I) congratulate PM Narendra Modi for delivering Gujarat for the sixth time in a row…congratulate BJP President Amit Shah for victories in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat." It would be too soon to predict a churn within the party.

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