In 2002, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was impossible to ignore. In 2022 — twenty years after – Shri Modi is still impossible to ignore. And for the next few years in the Indian subcontinent’s politics, Modiji will still make news. And that too as a catalyst of development and a strong proponent of the Hindutva brand of nationalistic politics. A jubilant Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel should send a bouquet to Arvind Kejriwal for contesting and campaigning hard in Gujarat. He must also thank Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for staying away from Gujarat.
Focusing On Women’s Empowerment
These might have made a combination — a delicious recipe for the Gujarat voters to embrace Moditva much more enthusiastically and prepare the ground for the 2024 parliamentary polls when their favourite candidate Narendra Modi will try for a hat-trick at the national level. While analysts and ivory tower-sitting TV experts focused on Patidar voters, while other intellectual analysts gave unreasonable importance to the AAP factor, the ruling BJP focused on women’s empowerment and this section, either Patidars or non-Patidars, changed the entire game. A crucial message from the 2022 mandate in Gujarat also suggests that ‘Revdi’ — freebies culture — succeeds in Delhi or Punjab. However, this culture failed miserably in Gujarat. Therefore, the rhetoric assertion is that Modi’s Gujarat and the ‘New India’ also mean giving importance to talent, skills and labour of the middle class. Everyone may not agree but this growing phenomenon has slowly started resulting in voters discarding politics of dynasty, say BJP booth workers. The BJP is undoubtedly more than delighted, and this will give it a significant advantage for the 2024 polls in terms of Modi’s magical vote-gathering power.
“The results of Gujarat Elections are quite clear. People have made up their minds to further continue with the journey of development in Gujarat. We humbly accept the mandate of the people. Every worker of BJP is committed to public service ”
— Bhupendra Patel, CM, Gujarat
The just concluded polls and next year’s elections in three North Eastern States of Nagaland, Meghalaya, Tripura and also Mizoram and three agrarian States of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and also in Karnataka will set the ball rolling for 2024 General Elections that will decide the fate of nationalists.
It will also decide the outcome of the politics of the likes of Chandrababu Naidu, K Chandrashekhar Rao, Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal.
Way back in 2022, many BJP workers had communicated a straightforward message from Gujarat that the Government should be people-centric. Two decades back, In 2002, ‘India Today’ wrote — “Narendra Damodardas Modi shocks India. And how. Look at him; look at him up close. For so long, he was just another politician. Then one day, he was just another Chief Minister. Today, he is just Modi. What’s in a surname?” Some people could still write these lines and wonder at the magic of Moditva.
Some sounded caustic but realistic — freebies – the ‘revdi’ culture could work in Delhi and Punjab, but it does not work elsewhere. Thus, the big – but ambitious’ dream of Kejriwal and his colleague Manish Sisodia to emerge as significant opposition leaders at the national level for the 2024 battle has failed. The Aam Aadmi Party, which was basking on the MCD win, has been once again told by the faceless Indian electorate that it was only a Delhi-based party. And Punjab story could be seen as a mix of an accidental win and an outcome of the cavalier way the Congress party functions.
Freebies – the ‘revdi’ culture could work in Delhi and Punjab, but it does not work elsewhere. Thus, the big – but ambitious’ dream of Kejriwal and his colleague Manish Sisodia to emerge as significant opposition leaders at the national level for the 2024 battle has failed
BJP humbled AAP’s so-called Chief Ministerial face Isudan Gadhvi rather convincingly. Ayar Mulubhai Hardasbhai Bera polled 61,781 per cent of votes, while Isudan Gadhvi of AAP finished second with 44 589 votes.
For BJP, 156 haul is a record. Madhavsinh Solanki had managed to win 149 in the 182-member Assembly in 1985 when the Congress hugely dominated politics. The BJP’s best performance so far was in 2002, when it won 127, which elevated Narendra Modi as a formidable player in State and national politics.
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