When 323 Gujarat local self-government bodies went to the polls last month, many believed the results would offer the first indications of Chief Minister Anandiben Patel’s popularity since she took over two years ago from Narendra Modi. The final verdict, announced on Wednesday, showed a clear divide in the western state: while the Patel’s Bharatiya Janata Party held on to the municipal corporations of Gujarat's six major cities, the Congress engineered an unexpected sweep in rural areas.


The BJP won 40 of the state’s 56 municipalities, losing seven bodies it had previously held. But its performance suffered in the countryside. Though the BJP had gone into the election ruling 30 of the state's 31 district panchayats, the Congress emerged victorious in 24 of them.  The Congress also won 134 of the 230 taluka panchayats, leaving the BJP with 67 bodies. The BJP had won 190 talukas in 2010.


The results came as a shock to the BJP, which had won all the state’s 26 Lok Sabha seats during the last general election. But much has changed over the past year. Narendra Modi, who was much admired by Gujaratis, moved on to Delhi to become prime minister. In addition, the state was wracked by a heated agitation by the influential Patidar community for reservations for seats in educational institutions and government jobs. The protests got so intense, the ruling BJP wanted to postpone the elections, citing law and order concerns. But it was prevented from doing so by the Gujarat High Court. The leader of the agitation, Hardik Patel, remains in jail on sedition charges.


Perhaps in a reflection of public anger against the administration's handling of the protests, the BJP suffered losses in the prestigious taluka and district panchayats that govern Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s native village of Vadnagar, chief minister Anandiben Patel’s  Visnagar and her deputy Nitin Patel’s Kadi. All these villages are located in north Gujarat’s Mehsana district, where the Patidar agitation originated.


Minister of State Rajnikant Patel’s hometown of Himmatnagar as well as the bastions of numerous other ministers also went the Congress way. Karnali village in Vadodara district which has been adopted by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, a Rajya Sabha member from Gujarat, also saw the BJP lose out.


But the BJP took consolation in its performances in urban areas. It retained all six city municipal corporations, though not without a fight. In Ahmedabad, it won 142 of the total 192 seats; in Surat, it took 76 of the 116 seats; in Vadodara, it won 54 of 76 seats; in Jamnagar, it got 38 of  64; and in Bhavnagar, it bagged 34 of 52 seats.


 However, in the Rajkot corporation, the BJP won by only four of the 38 seats, with 34 going to the Congress. Its tally of 142 in Amedabad corporation was 12 lower than its performance of 2010. Besides, though the Congress lost in cities, it increased its vote share in several areas.


Danish Ahmed is a Contributing Writer, Development News Network.