Shah invincible, Cong no match

Manas Dasgupta

Gandhinagar, April 16

It will be nothing short of a miracle if the Congress wins the Gandhinagar seat, traditionally a BJP bastion. With the BJP for three decades now, it is highly unlikely that the Congress will be able to break the chain. In all probability, it will be a cakewalk for BJP president Amit Shah.

The Congress seems to have given the seat on a platter to its rival by fielding a relatively weak candidate, Dr CJ Chavda, a member of the Gujarat Assembly representing Gandhinagar North. Some sections of the party wanted a charismatic personality, such as a film star, against Shah. The party waited till the last hour to find one, but failed. 

Shah seems invincible, considering that he has been managing the Gandhinagar constituency since the eighties when he was a booth in-charge. Gandhinagar has always been a BJP stronghold. Then state president Shankarsinh Vaghela, now NCP vice-president, decided to contest the seat even before the party had stood on its legs in 1989. Despite a stiff challenge from the Congress, he won by over 2.68 lakh votes. 

Since 1991, when the Congress fielded the then Bollywood superstar Rajesh Khanna in Delhi, Advani looking for a safer seat, accepted Vaghela’s invitation to come to Gandhinagar. He won from both, but preferred to keep Gandhinagar. Since then, except in 1996 when he made way for Atal Bihari Vajpayee to contest from Gandhinagar after his name figured in an alleged hawala scam, the BJP veteran bagged the seat every election, most of the time with an increasing margin.

When Vajpayee moved to Lucknow, BJP’s little known Vijay Patel won the seat in a byelection against  Congress’ Rajesh Khanna. Even TN Sheshan, the bureaucrat who provided “teeth” to the Election Commission, had to taste defeat in Gandhinagar at the hands of Advani in 1999. 

A highly urbanised seat, Shah has n the past contested from two of the seven Assembly seats falling in the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency, every time winning convincingly. The BJP controls five of the seven Assembly segments in Gandhinagar with only two with the Congress. Despite the Congress’ relatively good show in the last Assembly elections, the BJP polled about 2.70 lakh votes more than the Congress in Gandhinagar’s seven Assembly segments. 

The Congress hope of the BJP having alienated the “Patel” votes in Naranpura, Ghatolidya and Vejalpur segments owing to the Hardik Patel-led reservation stir, could be misleading. Among the first tasks that Shah undertook after filing his nomination papers was to convene a meeting of the Patidar leaders and pacify them. The leaders have issued a joint appeal to the Patels to back the BJP president. 

Other than Patels and Kshatriyas, each with a vote share of about 15 per cents, no other community has decisive votes in the constituency with the Muslims, Backward Classes and upper castes each having a share of seven to 10 per cent. Other than the minorities, most voters have shown an inclination for the BJP.

Nevertheless, Shah, who is a member of the Rajya Sabha, is not taking the contest lightly. He is frequently holding roadshows covering almost every part of the constituency. BJP sources say his victory is taken as a foregone conclusion but the target for him is to win the seat by a margin of over five lakh votes to obliterate Advani’s 2014 record victory margin of 4.83 lakh votes. 

WHAT is working for BJP CHIEF amit shah in gandhinagar

• Amit Shah has in the past won from two of the seven Assembly seats in the Gandhinagar LS constituency, each time convincingly
• After filing his nomination papers, he immediately convened a meeting of Patidar leaders to pacify them. They seem to have been won over by him
• Managing the Gandhinagar constituency since the eighties when he was booth in-charge, he knows the constituency well