AHEAD OF THE Congress Working Committee meeting on March 12, the Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan in Ahmedabad was buzzing with activity. Last-minute preparations were on at the party headquarters, with workers busy pasting posters on vehicles and, perhaps, sweeping the defection of its MLAs to the BJP under the carpet. The mood in the party was upbeat; the CWC was meeting in Gujarat for the first time since 1961. Also, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra chose the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah for her first election rally as Congress general secretary.
While the recent poaching by the BJP shows its desperation, the Congress will have to get its act together quickly to do well in the Lok Sabha polls. In the 2017 assembly elections, it had won 77 seats and restricted the BJP’s tally to 99 seats. Last week, in a span of four days, three of its MLAs—Jawahar Chavda from Manavadar, Purshottam Sabariya from Dhrangadhra and Vallabh Dharviya from Jamnagar Rural—joined the BJP. The BJP has been rewarding the turncoats with ministerial berths. Chavda was made cabinet minister within a day of joining the BJP. Another turncoat Dharmendrasinh Jadeja, who voted against Congress leader Ahmed Patel in the Rajya Sabha election in 2017, was made minister of state. He had won the 2017 assembly polls from Jamnagar (West) on a BJP ticket. Kunvarji Bavaliya of the Congress, who resigned as Jasdan MLA, was made minister within hours of joining the BJP last July. He retained the seat, winning the byelection in December.
Congress spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil said the BJP poached 14 of its MLAs ahead of the 2017 assembly polls and three others before that. Albeit, only two made it to the state assembly. More than 70 per cent of the Vijay Rupani-led cabinet was made up of Congressmen at some point. “The BJP talks about Congress-mukt Bharat (Congress-free India), and it [poaches] Congressmen,” said Hari Desai, founding director of Sardar Patel Research Institute.
The BJP won all the 26 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. A dip in the tally this time would reflect badly on the Modi-Shah leadership, said Desai. Sources said that the BJP decided to poach Congress MLAs soon after the 2017 polls. Its first catch was Bavaliya, whose clout in Jasdan is such that very few people turned up for Modi’s public meeting there ahead of the 2017 polls. In February, Dr Asha Patel, a first-time Congress MLA from Unjha in north Gujarat, joined the BJP. Asha, who had defeated BJP heavyweight Narayan Patel in the assembly polls, quit over disagreement with the local leadership, said a state Congress leader. “This was addressed, but it was too late by then,” he said. With respect to Chavda, the party was caught unawares. “I tried all his numbers, only to find those switched off,” said the Congress leader. He had resigned by then.
It is no coincidence that the BJP is poaching from Saurashtra and north Gujarat, where the party performed badly in the 2017 polls. The party also inducted Rivaba, wife of cricketer Ravindra Jadeja, from Saurashtra. State BJP spokesperson Bharat Pandya, however, said that the newly inducted MLAs are from different sections of the society. “We cannot close our doors to those who want to join the BJP,” he said.
The BJP, however, cannot afford to ignore Hardik Patel, who spearheaded the Patel reservation stir. Hardik, who joined the Congress on March 12, had campaigned against the BJP in the 2017 polls, and that had an effect on the party’s performance.
While Hardik’s entry is a plus for the Congress, a senior leader said, “conflict management is lacking in the party”. It barely averted another setback by convincing OBC leader and Radhanpur MLA Alpesh Thakore to stay back. Several leaders said that there is no proper communication between senior leaders and state Congress president Amit Chavda and opposition leader in the state assembly Paresh Dhanani, who are both young. Also, the party does not have a popular face in the state. Desai said that things would have been different if Shankersinh Vaghela, who joined the NCP in 2017, were around. He quit the Congress as he was unhappy with the style of functioning of some state Congress leaders. Former state Congress president Arjun Modhwadia, however, is confident that the party will win more seats than the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls.