Patel unease could return to haunt BJP

With the BJP on the defensive after the Karnataka ‘debacle’ and drubbings in several by-elections, Gujarat’s restive Patidars have begun to haunt the ruling party, yet again.

This could not have come at a worse time for the BJP: party chief Amit Shah is trying to mend fences with estranged allies like the Shiv Sena and the Akali Dal, and the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) is flexing its muscles ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Finding the BJP vulnerable, and the Opposition emboldened, the Patidars, who have been lying low after the December 2017 Vidhan Sabha elections, have suddenly become active. They have held a number of meetings across the State in the last few days, trying to revive their agitation.

Their leader, 24-year-old Hardik Patel, has even urged Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel to quit the BJP.

Also, Hardik’s supporters reportedly circulated a list of the ‘betrayers of the cause’, who had allegedly been bought over by the ruling BJP to break the Patidar agitation last year. While the veracity of these claims of cash exchange could not be established, some of these former Hardik loyalists are now in the BJP fold, even becoming the party’s spokespersons.

Amid speculation and much social media chatter over the last week, Nitin Patel has returned to the centre-stage in Gujarat. The Deputy CM is reportedly contemplating quitting the BJP, and taking along with him 25 ‘dissident’ party MLAs. The buzz was that he would then be chied minister with outside support from the Congress. The BJP has 99 legislators in the Gujarat Assembly, and the Congress has the backing of 81 MLAs. This could be the only way for him to be CM, the reports said.

The BJP currently has 29 Patidar MLAs.

Nitin Patel, of course, vehemently denied all ‘speculation’, condemning his opponents within the party and outside who, he claimed, were trying to tarnish his image. He also insisted that he would never quit the BJP. But his denials seems to have failed to convince a wary BJP, which appears to be scared of a repeat of the Shankarsinh Vaghela episode of 1996.

Nitin Patel’s ‘grudge’ with the BJP could be on various counts. He was seen as the most likely replacement for Anandiben Patel, who had to step down as chief minister in 2016 following the Patidar agitation and other issues. The BJP had also tried to pacify the angry Patidars by making Nitin a go-between. But his hopes were dashed when Shah brought in his lightweight protégé Vijay Rupani to succeed Anandiben, at a time when Nitin, his family and supporters had already ‘celebrated’ his elevation as the next CM.

Soon after the Assembly elections in December 2017, Nitin flexed his muscles and virtually forced the BJP ‘high command’ to allot him the Finance portfolio which Rupani had already assigned to another minister, Saurabh Patel. Nitin’s tantrums continued in some public functions, but has never crossed the ‘Lakshman Rekha’.

The poll results in Karnataka, and the BJP’s subsequent losses in Lok Sabha by-polls in Rajasthan and UP, seems to have given him this opportunity.

The Patidars have again brought to the fore the issue of their being systematically ‘sidelined’ by the BJP. Not only was Nitin is being ‘neutralised’ within the BJP and its government, but other senior Patels are also facing the same fate. They cite the examples of Keshubhai Patel and Anandiben Patel, Gordhan Jhadaphia and Pravin Togadia as Patidars who have been snubbed by the saffron brotherhood in recent past. “The same will happen to Nitin Patel,” they claim.

Clearly, both Modi and Shah will now be forced to put their home State in order before they focus on others.

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