by Pankaj Yadav, Zhao Xu
AHMEDABAD, India, April 23 (Xinhua) -- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to be facing a tough electoral battle in his home state, Gujarat, situated in the country's extreme west, as the seven-phased 17th general elections are underway.
In the last general elections held in 2014, Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which is the main ruling party in the country, comfortably won all the 26 parliamentary constituencies.
Gujarat is one of the 13 states that witnessed polls during the third phase of polling on Tuesday. Xinhua correspondents toured state capital Ahmedabad and spoke to a wide range of people and gathered that the Modi's BJP was not as comfortably placed as in the last elections. The general perception collected from among the people was that the party would fall short of its last elections' performance.
The main reason behind the most likely overall decline in BJP's tally in Gujarat is the "erosion" of the "Patel" (or Patidar) community's vote-bank towards the main opposition party the Indian National Congress (INC).
The "Patel" community had been the traditional vote bank of the BJP in the state all these years, but in the last provincial Assembly elections held in 2017, it shifted toward the INC and, as a result, the BJP could win only 99 lawmakers out of 182. It was the first time since 1995 when the BJP was reduced to a double-digit mark.
The BJP has been continually ruling the state for nearly 25 years, with minimal anti-incumbency sentiment which is quite clearly visible in this year's election. Professor Mukesh H. Khatik, the head of political science department at the Gujarat University, told Xinhua that in the prevailing circumstances in the state, the BJP might lose at least six constituencies and manage to win only 20 constituencies out of the total 26.
"The greatest loss of votes the party might face would be in the rural areas, particularly in the Saurashtra region which has as many as eight parliamentary constituencies dominated by the farmers. The area has faced a lot of agrarian crisis which hit the farmers very badly. Then there are issues like unemployment and water shortage faced by people living there," he added.
The emergence of caste-based politics in the state, particularly by the likes of young aspiring politicians -- Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mewani over demands for reservation in jobs and higher educational institutions also marred the BJP's interests in the state, Professor Khatik said.
"The Patel community demanded reservation, so did the other backward classes and the Dalits, but they remained satisfied by the state government's attitude towards their demand. So, these community people might not prefer voting for the BJP in this election."
Ishwar Ji Bhaviskar, a member of the Dalit community who runs a non-governmental organisation (NGO) fighting for the Dalits' rights, said that the incumbent government led by the BJP refused to grant reservation to the Dalits who started living in the state after May 1, 1960, when the state was carved out of Maharashtra.
"How can the Dalits vote for the BJP when this party cannot take care of their basic interests. The Dalits have suffered under the BJP rule. We look forward to its alternative," he told Xinhua, adding that the decisions of the BJP government at the center to implement Goods and Services Tax (GST) (in 2017) and Demonitisation (in 2016) had also hit hard the small traders and businessmen.
"Yes, the twin policies of GST and Demonitisation of the Modi government at the center affected small traders and businessmen's business up to 30 percent. But we don't see any other option as the opposition parties are too weak to take on him, and we think that Modi would do something that would benefit the small businessmen," said Dinesh Surenshchandra Agarwal, the proprietor of "Navrang Vastra Bhandar," a fabric shop in Ahemdabad's Gomtipur area.
