Gujarat: A Purge Like No Other
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-09-17 07:45:02
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
Gujarat is often called the experimental laboratory of the BJP-RSS. In the past, the combine has got away with many audacious experiments in the state but party's and Narendra Modi's popularity remained untouched. But this time, the BJP has exceeded itself and in a measure that has shocked both party insiders and the opposition, replaced the entire state cabinet with fresh faces, many of who are first time MLAs, after deciding on another first time MLA Bhupendra Patel as chief minister. Although the caste arithmetic has been kept intact, this is one political purge that has left former chief minister Vijay Rupani, his deputy Nitin Patel and almost all other BJP political heavyweights in the state by the wayside.
There is no doubt that the party is up against the cumulative anti-incumbency of 27 years that it has been ruling the state. When Modi was in the saddle, these things hardly mattered as his charisma was so strong that the promise of continuity, or more development under the so-called Gujarat model, overrode all other calculations. But after that, as it was clearly visible in the 2017 state elections, anti-incumbency was setting in and the BJP just about managed to win that year, losing 16 seats to a resurgent Congress and there was just 8 percent difference in vote share between the two parties. Although the party managed to recover vote share in the 2019 general elections, state elections are a different cup of tea and through this sweeping change the party wants to convey to the voters that the next generation of fresh candidates will take the state forward, with mentoring by Modi and Shah of course.
Inducting fresh faces has always been a double-edged sword. They bring fresh energy, new perspectives, are not chained to age-old political calculations and are likely to be better controlled by their handlers in Delhi but the problem of covert disturbances by those hitherto entrenched power centres who were left out is always there. But the BJP has very strict organizational discipline and the iron grip of Prime Minister Modi and Home minister Amit Shah over the party will ensure that everyone falls in line. Whether the experiment succeeds will only be known after the elections in 2022 but there is no doubt that the party's "shock and awe" tactic will confuse the opponents.
