Lok Sabha elections have been announced in Gujarat. After 19 days of announcing elections in Himachal Pradesh, the Election Commission announced the dates of elections in Gujarat. During this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had two long visits to Gujarat and inaugurated and inaugurated projects worth thousands of crores. In this sequence the process of free and fair elections became a farce and the Election Commission became a subject of ridicule. Because 19 days before the announcement of the election, the country knew that the counting of votes would take place on December 8. It is now known that the voting will be held on December 1 and 5. Where would such a free and fair election commission be? But that is a matter of separate discussion. Right now the center of interest of the whole country is the election of Gujarat Assembly. Will the BJP win in a thorny contest like last time or will it get an easy and big victory? Will the Congress continue as the main opposition party or will the Aam Aadmi Party replace it? Aam Aadmi Party is in real contest or is it just doing politics to cut votes? These are all questions on which the nation is watching.
The nation’s eye on Gujarat’s assembly elections is also because it is the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. According to ancient myths, Gujarat is the parrot in which both Modi and Shah have lived. If there is any upheaval in Gujarat, there will be an earthquake in the politics of both. Then the politics and power of the country will slip from their hands like sand. The country’s eyes are also on the Gujarat elections because it is the secret of people who understand the economy. However, the people of this state did not disappoint the BJP in the post-demonetisation elections. Despite this, the contest in the assembly elections was a close one. The BJP was barely able to cross the majority mark and its number of MLAs was stagnant at 99. This was despite the fact that the full impact of demonetisation had not started showing in 2017 and it was Narendra Modi’s first election to the state assembly after becoming prime minister. In the subsequent five years, the catastrophic effect of demonetisation has been shown and in the two years of Corona, all the business has come to a standstill. So it will be interesting to see whether the people of the state vote on economic issues over Modi and Shah’s Gujarati identity and other emotional issues! In the survey of CSDS and Lokniti before the elections, people expressed concern about inflation, unemployment and poverty. About 70 percent of the people have described it as a major issue of their problem.
The eyes of the whole country on the Gujarat elections are also because the BJP has been in government for 27 years in the state and the BJP has to pay the account of such long anti-incumbency. The development model has also been exposed by the tragic incident of bridge collapse in Morbi just before the election from above. However, by replacing the Chief Minister and all the ministers of the state, the BJP had run a card last year itself. Despite this, there is widespread anti-incumbency against the BJP. Against MLAs who are winning continuously, against MPs because they are also winning continuously and against double engine government because there is BJP government both at center and state. In that too both the Prime Minister and the Home Minister are from Gujarat. At the local level, most of the bodies are controlled by the BJP. In the next Lok Sabha elections, this kind of situation will happen at the country level because there will be anti-incumbency for 10 years against the central government and there will be anti-incumbency against the double engine government in most of the states where there is a BJP government. Most of the BJP MPs are winning for two consecutive terms. So, there will be atmosphere against them too. Only then it will be interesting to see how many MLAs BJP cuts tickets in Gujarat. It will come to know that how many MPs’ tickets will be cut in the Lok Sabha elections!
The country’s eyes are also on the Gujarat elections because Gujarat has been the Hindutva laboratory of the Sangh and the BJP and now Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal is experimenting with Hindutva. In the midst of announcing a lot of freebies to the people of Gujarat, he has also demanded that Lakshmiji and Ganeshji’s photo be put on the rupee. He has written a letter to the Prime Minister for this. The experiment done by the BJP government for the release of the rapists of Bilkis Bano is also involved in that experiment. He and his party declined to comment, saying it was not their issue. So, on the one hand, it is the Hindutva of the BJP, which has taken root in Gujarat with the efforts of many decades, and on the other hand it is the Hindutva of Kejriwal, which has come in the form of instant coffee. They are promoting Hindutva with the promise of providing free electricity and water to the people, 1000 rupees a month to women and building schools and hospitals. If they get some success from this, then in 2024 this experiment will be repeated at the country level.
The whole country will be watching the Gujarat elections because it will be fought like a rehearsal for the Lok Sabha elections. This election will prove more strongly the need for opposition unity. In the political picture that is visible now, it seems that the Aam Aadmi Party is dividing the anti-incumbency vote and it can benefit the BJP. In the last election, the BJP had got 49 per cent votes and 99 seats. In the face-to-face fight, the Congress got close to 42 per cent of the vote and 77 seats. This time the presence of Aam Aadmi Party has provided an alternative to the anti-incumbency vote. There is a large group of voters, who feel that they have been watching for so many decades that the Congress is not able to defeat the BJP, why not try the Aam Aadmi Party. In this thinking some people may leave Congress and go with AAP. But the problem is that you don’t have organization in the whole of Gujarat, don’t have workers and don’t have leaders who have influence in all-Gujarat. Gujarat is not a small state like Delhi, where elections can be won by making air. Keep in mind that in Punjab also it took 10 years for AAP to win. So, the vote trying AAP as an alternative will break with Congress, on the other hand, in villages, where there is no organization of AAP, the vote of Congress will remain united. Minority votes close to 10 per cent will hardly go with AAP now. In such a situation, the anti-BJP vote will be divided. The more votes the AAP gets, the more votes the Congress is likely to lose and the proportionate loss of seats. If this happens, it can be expected that the opposition parties will take some lessons and take the initiative to stop the division of anti-BJP votes in the next Lok Sabha elections.
