BJP faces setback in Gujarat local body elections

After the un-pleasant Bihar elections, the BJP is facing an election setback in the Gujarat local body elections.The Patidar agitation had already given the state leaders a hint about the result. While asked about the election results, a source says that BJP may not have expected a terrible drop.Earlier, the government authorities tried to postponed the election, and argued that the state is not prepared to conduct an election at the moment.

But while hearing a plea, Gujarat High Court insisted that the state government should re-consider the decision.Immediately after that, at the behest of the Gujarat Election Commission and Gujarat High Court, the state government was literally dragged into the election scenario.The people’s response to the election was much better this time, particularly in the panchayat region; even though the election was held during the festival season, over 45% people in the Municipal region and above 60% people in the ‘district and taluk’ region had turned out in the elections.

A notable growth of Congress was evident from the result; the party was largely benefited by the Pataidar agitations and anti-incumbency phenomena.For at least last 25 years, Gujarat has not welcomed any party other than BJP to rule their state.Even though there are some failures, the urban area results were largely satisfactory for the BJP government, but the rural area results were a disaster.The BJP won all municipal corporations and forty two out of fifty six municipalities in the urban area.

While crosschecking the last election results, in rural areas, BJP’s 2460 taluk seats has come down to 2017 and the Congress’s 1428 taluk seat has done up to 2548; meanwhile, in district panchayat, Congress grabbed twenty out of thirty one seats.Surprisingly, when Muslim votes channeled into the BJP pocket, the Patidar largely opted Congress; it was more evident in the Surashtra peninsula.Political experts say that this is not a permanent phenomenon. While elucidating the points about the election results he claims; this is an after effect of the Patidar agitation and several other factors.He further added that we cannot say the congress had permanently grabbed patal vote bank.Ridiculing the Pataidar theory; a BJP source says; now, the party proves they can survive without the Patal vote bank.

A setback in the agrarian region is indirectly warning the center to consider some farmers friendly policy instead of this mega projects.It seems the government must show more enthusiasm to overcome the farmer’s issues, like crop failure, farmer suicide, and land acquisition law.   However, this time the Modi charisma faded before the real issues.

Vignesh

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