From Adityanath to Uma Bharati, BJP drafts a roster of heavy-hitters for Gujarat campaign

Since 2002, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s election campaign in Gujarat has always revolved around one personality – Narendra Modi. In the campaigns for the 2002, 2007 and 2012 Assembly elections in the state, Modi was the sole rallying point.

Now, as momentum builds in Gujarat for a do-or-die poll battle later this year, it is becoming apparent that though Modi remains the pivot of the BJP’s election campaign, the party is not relying only on him or even party president Amit Shah to draw in voters.

Shah has set the party a target of 150-plus seats in the 182-seat Assembly this time. To create the groundswell to achieve this target, the BJP has brought in several senior leaders from outside Gujarat to campaign. Most significant among them is Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath, who is being presented as Hindutva’s new poster boy.

Polarising speech

Adityanath started a two-day visit to South Gujarat on Friday with a polarising speech in Valsad, South Gujarat. “They [Congress] are not supporters of development, but of devastation,” he said. “That is why when a terrorist like Ishrat Jahan was killed by security forces in Gujarat [Congress vice-president] Rahul Gandhi came to support her.”

This was a contentious claim. Nineteen-year-old Ishrat Jahan and three others were killed in an alleged encounter with security forces on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in 2004. The Gujarat Police had claimed that the four were conspiring to kill Narendra Modi, who was Gujarat’s chief minister at the time. However, a chargesheet produced by the Central Bureau of Investigation in 2013 called the encounter a case of “unlawful killing”, conducted jointly by the Intelligence Bureau and the Gujarat police. Modi’s confidante, Amit Shah, who is BJP president Amit Shah, was charged with orchestrating the killing. After the BJP won the 2014 national elections, Shah was cleared of the charge.

That was not the only statement made by BJP leaders on the campaign trail that seemed to sit at odds with reality. The previous day, on October 12, at a rally in Banaskantha district of North Gujarat, Union Minister Uma Bharati claimed that the Congress benefited from the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

“This matter is going on since the time [Nathuram] Godse killed Gandhiji,” she said. “Today I ask the country through you [the media] as to who benefited from the murder of Gandhiji.”

She added that while the RSS faced damage and the country suffered losses because of Gandhi’s assassination, “only the Congress benefited”.

Bharati said: “[This is] because Gandhiji had suggested that the Congress be dissolved [after Independence]. In fact, he had already announced that the Congress shall be disbanded.”

Bharati was accompanied by Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia, who also addressed the rally.

On Saturday, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will attempt to reach out to women voters in the state. She is scheduled to preside over a video event called Mahila Townhall in Ahmedabad, where she is expected to take questions from women across the state.

The decision to field Swaraj is seen as a strategic move by the party to consolidate women voters, a constituency Modi is said to have carefully nurtured during his stint as Gujarat chief minister between 2001 and 2014.

Critics see desperation

While BJP insiders remain tight-lipped with regard to the subtle break in the party’s electioneering strategy in Gujarat, Modi’s opponents have tried to interpret it as a sign of its desperation in the state.

Young Patidar leader Hardik Patel, for example, pointed this out in a tweet on October 12. “Earlier leaders of Gujarat BJP used to go to other states for election campaign. But now leaders from other states come to Gujarat for election campaign,” he tweeted.

While there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the BJP drafting leaders from across the country for the campaign, it does raise questions about the state of the party in Modi’s home turf. All will be known on December 18, when the election results are declared.