People's Democracy

More Jolts For BJP In Gujarat

Babulal Likhure

RECENT weeks have marked repeated setbacks for the ruling BJP in Gujarat. The Gujarat Gaurav Yatra, the celebration of massacre of more than a thousand people, had to be postponed owing to building up of tension in village Phagvel in the Kapadvanj Lok Sabha constituency represented by Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee president Shankersinh Vaghela.

Moreover, the Supreme Court clearly ruled that it had no objection to a delayed time-frame for the elections to the state assembly. It was a double blow to the ruling BJP that the Supreme Court also refused to look into the factual aspects of the Election Commission’s observations on the reasons for not allowing an early election in the state.

This ruling indirectly upholds the Election Commission's finding that the state government has miserably failed to protect its people against the marauders and also had been indifferent in providing relief and rehabilitation to the victims of the worst carnage in the history of the state.

And the Election Commission is not wrong as even six months after the minorities fled their burning homes, thousands of them are still languishing in the relief camps which too are facing imminent closures due to pressures from the administration.

The state government has not done much except providing rations to the relief camps while chunk of the rehabilitation efforts have been borne by various Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). But reports say that the rehabilitation efforts by way of providing sewing machines to tailors and hand carts to vendors have not been successful enough as while the men are too scared to enter the affluent areas where lies the real women are not getting much work from the merchants of the majority community purchasing power.

Given the ground realities in the state, denying the ruling BJP an opportunity to cash in on the perceived communal polarisation was the best justice the Election Commission could have done to the minorities in Gujarat.

But, for the ruling BJP the bigger setback was the humiliating retreat from the ‘Gujarat Gaurav Yatra’ in the face of growing tension in village from where it was to start on September 3. The tension itself was the state BJP’s creation by deciding to launch the ‘Yatra’ from a village where the party’s arch rival Sankersinh Vaghela was being felicitated on the same day.

The Hindutwa protagonists were beaten in its own game plan by one of their former comrades as Vaghela too unleashed the religion card by deifying a mere mortal, a local Kshatriya king, Bhathiji Maharaj, who was killed while trying to save a herd of cows about 450 years ago. While some intellectuals call the contest a non event -saffron versus pale saffron, others feel a one to one fight between the BJP and the secular opposition could well see the beginning of the end of the BJP in Gujarat.

As though the first postponement was not enough, the state BJP had to postpone the ‘Gujarat Gaurav Yatra’ once again as the realisation had dawned late that the new launch date, Sept 7 is "amavasya" (New Moon) during which no auspicious venture can be taken up. This was again its ‘Hindutva’ which forced the BJP to make a hasty retreat, this time for the third time.

All in all it was Congress leader Vaghela who had the last laugh while the ruling BJP suffered setback after setback.