oppn parties Gujarat: A Purge Like No Other

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  • For the first time ever, Mukesh Ambani buys a 29% stake in Gautam Adani's Mahan Energen, a subsidiary of Adani Power to source 500MW of electricity from the company's power plant in MP
  • Stocks continue to rise on Thursday - Sensex gains 639 points to 73635 and Nifty 203 points to 22326
  • Golf - Indian Open: 3 Indians at tied 14th as Joost Luiten takes the lead with a wonderful 7-under 65
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  • In Assam, a controversy erupted after a picture of UPPL leader Benjamin Basumatary, lying on a stack of Rs 500 notes circulated on social media. UPPL is an ally of the BJP
  • AAP's Jalandhar-West MP Sushil Kumar Rinku joins the BJP. He was the only AAP Lok Sabha MP
  • Supreme Court dismisses Centre's plea to review its 2023 verdict in the PMLA case
  • Close save for passengers as they remain unhurt after the wings of two planes graze at Kolkata airport. Pilots derostered and inquiry ordered by DGCA
  • Bengal BJP leader Dilip Ghosh gets notice from the EC as well as the BJP for making ugly remarks about Mamata Banerjee's parentage
  • Sadanand Vasanth Date, who faught terrorists in the 26/11 attack and was awarded the Preisent's Police medal, has been appointed the head of the NIA
  • Centre will borrow Rs 7.5L cr in the first six months of FY25, nearly 50% of the target for the full year
  • 25 stocks, including SBI, will see same day trade settlements from today in the world's fastest settlement mode in both BSE and NSE
  • Stocks recover smartly on Wednesday: Sensex rises 526 points to 72996 and Nifty 118 points to 22123
  • Tennis: Rohan Bopanna-Matthew Ebden reached the semifinals of the Miami Open
Delhi Lt Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena says government cannot be run from jail, hints at President's Rule in the capital ////// In a dangerous incident, the wings of two planes grazed while taxiing on the runway at Kolkata airport, all passengers were safe but DGCA ordered an inquiry and the pilots were derostered
oppn parties
Gujarat: A Purge Like No Other

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-09-17 07:45:02

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.

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.