Skip to main content

Bellicose BJP and antsy AAP: Why Kejriwal's "surgical strikes" earned the ire of panick-stricken Gujarat rulers

A North Gujarat poster ahead of Kejriwal visit
By RK Misra*
Cats stalk quietly and wolves prey in packs but why is the behemoth of a BJP getting paranoid over antsy Aam Admi Party (AAP) and barking up all manner of trees?
Quite simply, because it’s iron clasp grip on Gujarat is slipping and a queasy national party leadership is stuck for options to reverse the trend.
AAP, analysts say, is set to make impressive gains in Punjab and Goa and this will majorly impact election results in Gujarat which goes to polls in the last quarter of 2017. A mere foot-in-the door is all that AAP needs in the prime minister’s home state to make ants crawl up the pants of the NDA government in the 2019 general elections.
A panic stricken Goliath is even mulling the ultimate option of early elections in Gujarat along with UP and Punjab, more to stretch AAP to oblivion than to run the Congress out of reckoning.
While BJP president Amit Shah has asked the state party leadership to get into poll mode post haste, the Congress, marinated by Modi through three state Assembly elections, still remains a pregnant hippopotamus in languorous recline, notwithstanding it’s significant gains in the December 2015 local self government elections.
Grasping the opening, AAP has been sprightlier with Kejriwal making ‘surgical’ strikes in Gujarat to capitalize on the lapses of the BJP government before moving back to the safety of his stronghold. Stung to the quick, the administration resorts to reprisals against the beneficiaries which completes the vicious circle that helps Kejriwal consolidate on his gains.AAP has truly become the bugbear of the BJP.
Even before he stepped onto the Gujarat soil on a three day visit ending October 16, 2016, posters appeared in the name of ‘unheard’ organizations equating him with terrorists like Osama bin Laden, Hafiz Saeed and the Hizbul Mujahideen's Burhan Wani.
Put up around Unjha and Mehsana towns in North Gujarat and Surat in the south, these termed him as "Hero of Pakistan” and a “traitor” to India. Interestingly, these pasted posts made their appearance only in the citadels of Patidar rebellion against the BJP led Gujarat government just the night before Kejriwal was to meet the family members of those killed during the pro-reservation agitation by the upper caste Patels.
Ever since Kejriwal came out in support of the Patidar and Dalit stirs in the state, he has earned the ire of the BJP which rules Gujarat but this has only heightened his appeal amongst this class. AAP's Gujarat convenor Gulab Singh Yadav has been categorical putting the blame squarely at the doorsteps of BJP chief Amit Shah.
“Just the presence of our leader rattles this government”, he said. He has a point. Hours before the all important Surat rally of the party,the Delhi police turned up to arrest him, making Yadav the fourteenth Delhi AAP legislator to be picked up by the cops. Alas, too late for the Surat rally was a roaring success.
Permission for the rally was not easy. The Surat police sat placid on the request made in August for a rally in mid-october and budged only after the High Court intervened with a show cause notice to the state government.
Earlier in July, the South Gujarat University withdrew permission for a similar Kejriwal function and the trade body which had extended the invitation was forced to back down. The authorities, however, had no problems granting permission for rallies in Surat by Shah, union minister Smriti Irani and even Congress legislature party leader Shankersinh Vaghela.
Gujarat BJP spokesperson Bharat Pandya denies any role of his party though the sequence of events do not bear this out. The targeting of Kejriwal has been vicious in Gujarat though less than after he worsted the BJP to an auto-load in Delhi, an upgraded municipal corporation ‘packaged’ as a state government. And yet the might of the Centre runs in awe slapping cases on legislator after AAP legislator,14 of them, by last count.
It is true to a pattern for those who have watched a decade and a quarter of Modi rule in Gujarat. In fact an extension. All the Gujarat police officers who were behind bars under court ordered investigations in numerous fake encounter cases, including charge-sheeted ones, are back in plum posts while those who slogged to bring them to book are fighting for their lives.
Only last week Tarun Barot who was arrested in connection with the Ishrat Jahan and Sadiq Jamal encounter cases has been reinstated post-retirement on a one year contract as DSP, Railways. In contrast, Inspector General of Police, Satish Verma who assisted investigations under High Court orders stands shunted to the North-East and is locked in a battle to retain government accommodation for his family which is mandated under the rules. Instances abound.
As things stand, the BJP, it’s novice chief minister Vijay Rupani and state party chief Jitu Vaghani are all at sea in their new charges. Rupani ,a Shah appointee, like Congressmen of yore, keeps looking Delhi-wards for both inspiration and orders, and Vaghani, a Patel has problems gaining the support of his community, let alone run the party.
Political interns fronting for Shah are poorly placed, stepping into Modi’s shoes in Gujarat, let alone helming the party into elections. Even Shah with all his muscle and Modi support cut a sorry figure when his show of strength in Surat in September was sabotaged by the agitating Patels who have been boycotting government functions and ministers with considerable success. Shah would find the going tough if he himself takes over in Gujarat!
Survey the scenario. Patidars who comprise 15 per cent voters have been on the warpath since July 15, 2015 demanding reservation and their leader Hardik Patel though incarcerated out of Gujarat under court orders is now a force to be reckoned with.
Close on their heels come the OBC who are nearly 45 per cent of the population and are opposing any possible cut in their quota. Led by Alpesh Thakore they have chosen a more sanitized way of demonstrating their clout by targeting bootleggers and the cops who make merry through liquor prohibition-a huge industry in Gujarat.
Then follow the warring Dalits, comprising 7 per cent, who have already scalped a chief minister (Anandiben Patel) and are still on the job headhunting.
All in all, not a re-assuring experience for the BJP to find 82 per cent of the state’s population up in arms against the government and Kejriwal wading into the turmoil, as aggressive as Modi used to be attacking the centre during his Gujarat days!
---
*Senior Gandhinagar-based journalist. Blog: http://wordsmithsandnewsplumbers.blogspot.in/

Comments

Post a Comment

TRENDING

Was Netaji forced to alter face, die in obscurity in USSR in 1975? Was he so meek?

  By Rajiv Shah   This should sound almost hilarious. Not only did Subhas Chandra Bose not die in a plane crash in Taipei, nor was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba who reportedly passed away on 16 September 1985 in Ayodhya, but we are now told that he actually died in 1975—date unknown—“in oblivion” somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Which city? Moscow? No one seems to know.
1 comment
»

Love letters in a lifelong war: Babusha Kohli’s resistance in verse

By Ravi Ranjan*  “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” Bertrand Russell’s words echo hauntingly in our times, and few contemporary Hindi poets embody this truth as profoundly as Babusha Kohli. Emerging from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Kohli has carved a unique space in literature by weaving together tenderness, protest, and philosophy across poetry, prose, and cinema. Her work is not merely artistic expression—it is resistance, refuge, and a call for peace.
Post a Comment
»

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.
59 comments
»

Asbestos contamination in children’s products highlights global oversight gaps

By A Representative   A commentary published by the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS) has drawn attention to the challenges governments face in responding effectively to global public-health risks. In an article written by Laurie Kazan-Allen and published on March 5, 2026, the author examines how the discovery of asbestos contamination in children’s play products has raised questions about regulatory oversight and international product safety. The article opens by reflecting on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that governments in several countries were slow to respond to early warning signs of the crisis. Referring to the experience of the United Kingdom, the author writes that delays in implementing protective measures contributed to “232,112 recorded deaths and over a million people suffering from long Covid.” The commentary uses this example to illustrate what it describes as the dangers of underestimating emerging threats. Attention then turns...
Post a Comment
»

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah  Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".
51 comments
»

The kitchen as prison: A feminist elegy for domestic slavery

By Garima Srivastava* Kumar Ambuj stands as one of the most incisive voices in contemporary Hindi poetry. His work, stripped of ornamentation, speaks directly to the lived realities of India’s marginalized—women, the rural poor, and those crushed under invisible forms of violence. His celebrated poem “Women Who Cook” (Khānā Banātī Striyāṃ) is not merely about food preparation; it is a searing indictment of patriarchal domestic structures that reduce women’s existence to endless, unpaid labour.
Post a Comment
»

The price of silence: Why Modi won’t follow Shastri, appeal for sacrifice

By Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey*  ​In 1965, as India grappled with war and a crippling food crisis, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri faced a United States that used wheat shipments under the PL-480 agreement as a lever to dictate Indian foreign policy. Shastri’s response remains legendary: he appealed to the nation to skip one meal a day. Millions of middle-class households complied, choosing temporary hunger over the sacrifice of national dignity. Today, India faces a modern equivalent in the energy sector, yet the leadership’s response stands in stark contrast to that era of self-reliance.
Post a Comment
»

India’s green energy push faces talent crunch amidst record growth at 16% CAGR

By Jag Jivan*  A new study by a top consulting firm has found that India’s cleantech sector is entering a decisive growth phase, with strong policy backing, record capacity additions and surging investor interest, but facing mounting pressure on talent supply and rising compensation costs .
Post a Comment
»

Beyond sattvik: Purity, caste and the politics of the Indian kitchen

By Rajiv Shah   A few week ago, I was forwarded an article that appeared in the British weekly The Economist . Titled “Caste and cuisine: From honeycomb curry to blood fry: India’s ‘untouchable’ cooking”, it took me back to what I had blogged about what was called a “ sattvik food festival”, an annual event organised by former Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad professor Anil Gupta.
2 comments
»