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Lok Sabha elections 2019: A battle for prestige on BJP’s home turf amid farm crisis
The BJP has tried to revive itself in the region through welfare schemes and by poaching Congress legislators. Modi has also held three out of his six rallies in Gujarat in Saurashtra. Congress president, Rahul Gandhi, addressed two of his five rallies in the region.
All 26 seats in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat will go to the polls in the third phase of ongoing general elections on Tuesday. The contest is primarily between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress.
The BJP won all 26 seats in 2014. The Congress recorded its best ever performance in the state since 1995 when it won 79 out of 182 seats in the assembly elections in Gujarat in 2017. The BJP bagged 99 seats and formed the government.
Saurashtra in south-western Gujarat will be keenly watched. The Congress swept the region, a BJP bastion, in 2017 on the back of disenchantment among farmers and business communities with the ruling BJP. The Congress won 32 out of the region’s 56 seats. The region sends seven lawmakers to Parliament.
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The BJP has tried to revive itself in the region through welfare schemes and by poaching Congress legislators. Modi has also held three out of his six rallies in Gujarat in Saurashtra. Congress president, Rahul Gandhi, addressed two of his five rallies in the region.
The Congress is also hoping to put up a better show in north Gujarat, which has six Lok Sabha seats. Other Backward Classes and Dalits, which have been the Congress’s traditional supporters, dominate the region. The BJP is banking on its strong presence in urban and semi-urban regions of Gujarat, where about 57% of the state’s total population lives.
Modi and BJP chief, Amit Shah, have extensively campaigned in Gujarat, focusing on nationalism and the Indian air strike in Pakistan on February 26 in retaliation to the February 14 bomb attack in Kashmir. The Congress campaign has centred on alleged corruption in the Rafale jet deal.
Shah is among those in the fray in Gujarat. He is up against the Congress’s three-term legislator, C J Chavda, in Gandhinagar. In Amreli, Congress’s Paresh Dhanani is pitted against BJP’s Naran Kachadiya. Former Congress state chief, Bharatsinh Solanki, is the party’s candidate in Anand, against BJP’s Mitesh Patel.
As many as 43 million voters are eligible to vote while 371 candidates are in the fray. Surendranagar has a maximum of 31 candidates and Panchamhal the lowest, 6.
Ahmedabad-based political analyst, Hari Desai, said Gujarat is a prestige issue for the BJP as it seeks to retain all 26 seats. Desai added the Congress is keen to build on its performance in 2017 assembly elections. “And for that reason, Saurashtra has been focus of both the Congress and the BJP. If Congress snatches a few seats from the BJP, it will be a huge moral victory for them.”
In Daman and Diu, sitting MP Lalubhai Patel of the BJP will face Ketan Patel of the Congress. The Union Territory is a set of two geographically independent areas in western India separated by Arabian Sea.
In Dadra and Nagar Haveli, the BJP has nominated its sitting MP Natubhai Gomanbhai Patel against Congress leader and six-term MP Mohanbhai Sanjibhai Delkar. The Union Territory is landlocked between Gujarat and Maharashra.
