Nothing seems to be working right for Vijay Rupani.

Six weeks after he took oath as Chief Minister, Gujarat’s frayed socio-political substratum threatens to upset the BJP’s electoral apple-cart in a State where the party has been in power since 1995. Gujarat goes to the polls in 2017.

Rupani has little to show for political experience, and it shows in his functioning as Chief Minister. Pitch-forked to succeed Anandiben Patel only two years into his first term as MLA and first stint as State Minister, Rupani is a political greenhorn still trying to come to grips with the onerous responsibility of being Chief Minister.

On September 23, the State government issued a notification keeping in abeyance the 10 per cent quota for Economically Backward Classes (EBCs) in jobs and admissions to educational institutions — only to withdraw its own order within hours. “It is a confusing notification and we have decided to withdraw it,” said Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel, far more experienced than Rupani, on Saturday.

The quota was brought in as an ordinance by the Anandiben government in May, as a response to the anger of Patidars, who had been loyal BJP supporters until last year. Upon being challenged, the Gujarat High Court struck it down on August 8, forcing the State government to approach the Supreme Court. The apex court, through an interim order on September 9, referred the matter to a five-judge Constitution Bench.

The gazette notification on Friday evening triggered sharp reactions from all quarters, even from within the BJP. Patidar leader Hardik Patel, who had dubbed the 10 per cent quota as a “lollipop”, charged the government with misleading the three-crore-strong upper caste population. Congress spokesman Shaktisinh Gohil termed it a sham. “Had the government been serious, it would have introduced the bill in the Vidhan Sabha and got it passed.” Alarmed, Rupani withdrew the notification within hours.

Earlier on Friday, Rupani had announced a Twitter townhall and created a buzz through his Twitter handle. But his failure to address quetions properly — angry Twitterati flooded him with problems related to civic issues — and his announcement that the townhall was a “success”, only infuriated them into trolling him no end!

These are but a few issues testing Rupani’s political mettle. Several BJP leaders felt he was virtually “foisted” upon the Gujarat leadership by his mentor, BJP President Amit Shah, while overlooking the claims of Nitin Patel, who was number two in the Anandiben Patel government.

In view of his ‘inexperience’, the BJP leadership is trying to provide political muscle to Rupani, but has met with little success. On September 8, both Shah and Rupani, besides others, were forced to beat a hasty retreat at Surat where the party had organised a gala show to “felicitate” the ruling party’s Patidar leaders — an outreach programme to keep them in good humour and woo them back to supporting the ruling party poll campaign for 2017. But the event had to be folded up abruptly after angry Hardik supporters created pandemonium.

Two days later, Rupani again faced the same music in Bhavnagar.

Contrast his case with Anandiben’s: soon after taking over as the successor to Narendra Modi in May 2014, she tried to wriggle out of the former Chief Minister’s shadow, and launched her slogan of “Gatisheel Gujarat” (Dynamic Gujarat), to match “Vibrant Gujarat”. She also tried to inculcate openness in government and give fresh direction to the State, until the Hardik Patel phenomenon disturbed her government.

For now, the BJP and its government appears clueless, directionless, and leaderless in Gujarat.

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