Ahmedabad, July 22: In a shock defeat for the Gujarat BJP and Narendra Modi, the party’s first-ever experiment of fielding five Muslims failed to win it the local polls in Junagadh, results of which were declared.
Chief Minister Modi had made the elections, the first since the party’s poor performance in the Lok Sabha polls, a prestige issue. Party ministers, MPs and MLAs all camped here for the campaign, while the BJP even distributed booklets showcasing the Sachar Committee report which it otherwise criticised to highlight how Muslims were doing well in Gujarat, with an eye on the 15 per cent Muslim vote bank.
However, while the BJP tally came down to 21 seats in the Junagadh Municipal Corporation (JMC) from 35 last time, the Congress’s went up from 15 to 26. This was the Congress’s first clean win in the seven municipal corporations in Gujarat, the rest of which are dominated by the BJP. The BSP won three JMC seats, while one of the seats went to an Independent.
Modi had fielded 45 new candidates for the polls, denying a ticket to even sitting mayor Jyoti Vacchani. Ironically, all the six councillors whom it did retain won. All the five BJP men who had defected to the Congress during the Lok Sabha polls also won.
Vijay Rupani, Gujarat BJP general secretary in charge of the polls, attributed the defeat to local reasons. “We failed to satisfy people’s expectations during the last five years,” he said. While Rupani insisted that the party’s share of Muslim votes had increased, ex-BJP MP and former Central minister Bhavna Chikhaliya admitted that the party’s gambit of trying to win over the community didn’t cut much ice. “Muslim voters could not accept or probably could not understand our views,” she said.
An elated Congress underlined how the defeat was a personal setback for Modi, who had made the JMC poll a prestige issue, even announcing a Rs 600 crore package for the region. “It is people’s verdict against corruption and mismanagement by the BJP,” Gujarat Congress chief Siddharth Patel said.
Girish Kotecha, newly elected Councillor from Ward No. 10, called the results “the beginning of the end of the Modi era in Gujarat”.
With the fielding of the five Muslims seen as part of an image makeover exercise by the Chief Minister that failed, others too are seeing it as a major setback for him. “More than the Congress’s victory, it is the BJP’s defeat,” said a senior party leader.
Former BJP chief minister Suresh Mehta, who recently quit the party, noted that Junagadh had been known to always vote for the BJP whether it was local or general elections. In a span of just four months, this is the second stronghold that the BJP has lost ground in, the first being Rajkot. The Congress won the Rajkot seat in the Lok Sabha polls.
-Agencies