“I am also a Gujarati,” Congress candidate and former union minister Bharatsinh Solanki told party workers on April 18 at Satyagraha Chawni in Central Gujarat’s Borsad. Solanki recalled the work of his father, former chief minister Madhavsinh Solanki, to counter Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s invocation of Gujarati pride a day earlier. At an election rally in Anand, Modi had said that “only a Gujarati can teach Pakistan a lesson”, referring to the air strikes in Balakot on February 26 — a retaliation to the attack on Indian paramilitary soldiers in Pulwama earlier that month.
The BJP is hoping that it will be able to retain all the 26 Lok Sabha seats that it swept in the 2014 general election. Gujarat will go to polls in a single phase on April 23. Anand, a traditional Congress bastion, will be a bellwether seat.
Headquarters to the famous Amul (Anand Milk Union Limited), Congress has won 11 of the 16 Lok Sabha elections here. Bharatsinh Solanki won in 2004 and 2009, but lost to BJP’s Dalipbhai Patel in 2014 by over 200,000 votes. Before 2014, the BJP had won from here only in 1989 and 1999. Industrialist Mitesh Patel has replaced the incumbent as BJP’s candidate this time around.
“Traditionally Congress has been strong in Central Gujarat because of its association with the independence movement and then building a strong milk cooperative network benefitting almost all rural households in the region,” said Anand-based political expert Daral Bhatt.
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{{/usCountry}}Amul chairman Ram Singh Parmar said the milk movement helped the Congress retain its voters. “People in rural Gujarat saw Congress as their saviour when the region was hit by drought and crop failures. Milk provided an alternate income and sustained lives.” Parmar, a former Congress legislator, switched over to the BJP during the 2016 Rajya Sabha elections. “The BJP made inroads through the Patel community who ushered an economic boom in the region with their own personal investments,” he said.
The primarily farmer dominated region has four to six lane highways, swanky roads that reach villages and booming industry. Non-resident Patels with local business persons have built private hospitals and educational institutions. Locals credit the last 25 years of the BJP government for opening the state for investment.
Vijaybhai Gohil from Dohal village said as PM, Modi has brought big factories to Gujarat, especially in the industrial belt of Morbi, which has hundreds of ceramic factories. However, Devesh Kumar from the same village complained of corruption. “No work at a government office here gets done without money and nobody listens to the poor.” Chagganbhai Pancham, a businessperson in Anand said the BJP is a party of rich people. “In the last 25 years of BJP in Gujarat, the rich have become richer and poor are struggling to sustain their lives,” he said.
Solanki, under whose leadership the Congress won 79 of the 182 assembly seats in 2017 assembly elections, claimed that the Congress will do well in Gujarat as people have lost faith in Modi. “If not Anand, then Congress cannot win any other seat,” he said, adding that the party will win 16 Lok Sabha seats, the claim many in his own party say is impossible.
Solanki belongs to the OBC Kshatriya Thakor caste, with over 750,000 voters, while the BJP candidate Mitesh Patel belongs to the Patidar community, with around 242,000 voters. Muslim voters number around 140,000.
Though caste equations are in the Congress’ favour, the BJP candidate Mitesh Patel claims it does not come into the picture as his party won from here in 1989, 1999 and 2014. “People here like rest of Gujarat and India are voting for Modi. I am his representative here,” Patel said.