The Khajurias Are '101, Not Out'

HOURS before Shankarsinh Vaghela was sworn in as Gujarat’s 12th chief minister on October 23, anxious callers who jammed the only phone line to his Gandhinagar residence were given a single line of advice: watch the 2 pm news. Doubts that President’s rule had actually been lifted and that a BJP petition being heard the same day in the Gujarat High Court would check Vaghela’s way to the chair, disappeared with Doordarshan’s afternoon headlines. Vaghela was in at the head of a Congress-supported Mahagujarat Janata Party (MJP) government, bringing to an end a year of trouble during which he toppled two BJP governments in the state.

Vaghela’s threat to make it to the chief minister’s chair had been looming over the BJP ever since the party expelled him on August 9, after he made the state unit a showcase of indiscipline. But, despite situations that benefited him, like the dismissal of the Suresh Mehta government and imposition of President’s rule from September 19, Vaghela had a problem with numbers. His ally, Dilip Parikh’s MJP, which he now heads, could not prove it had more than 26 legislators. Though the tally went up to 40, and nine out of 16 Independents offered their support, he still needed the backing of the 45-strong Congress bloc to get a majority in the 181-member House (one seat is vacant after the death of the Speaker). It was only after a week of Congress’ deliberations in Delhi and Gujarat, and the state CLP meeting on October 22 when the party announced its support, that Vaghela could declare "we are 101, not out!"

The new government just about made it to office. After Uttar Pradesh, Congress support was in doubt. The main question in party circles was: why should the Congress prop up a government sympathetic to the United Front after it was let down in Uttar Pradesh? In Delhi, AICC General Secretary Madhavsinh Solanki and Treasurer Ahmed Patel opposed the decision, saying short-term gains, like keeping out the BJP, would prove detrimental to the Congress in the long run. But the decision was finally left to the state unit where some said it would not pay to tie up with the 57-year-old wily, street-smart politician, labelled as corrupt and seen to have bought his way to power. The foremost argument against support to Vaghela was that his party was cutting into Congress vote banks and not affecting the BJP.

THE bickering persists as some in the Congress feel it was a self-defeating decision. A case in point is the recent byelections to the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha seat and two assembly constituencies. Filmstar Rajesh Khanna lost to an unknown BJP party worker Vijay Patel in Gandhinagar and the Congress found its victory margin halved in Nadiad, a party stronghold. Vaghela’s candidates, fielded under the Rashtriya Janata Party (RJP), which he had formed in August, took away Congress and not BJP votes. Worse, he even fielded ex-Congressmen. "My aim is to see the Congress rule Gujarat, not to have our party routed. In the past, similar decisions reduced us from rulers to a 45-member group in the assembly. But if the state leadership has decided to support Vaghela, as a soldier of the party, I have to go along," says MLA Bharat Solanki, who like his father Madhavsinh, belongs to the group which says this tie will be a loss. They cite the instance of a similar arrangement with the late Chimanbhai Patel’s Janata Dal (Gujarat) in 1993 that undid the Congress which had once ruled the state.

Former chief minister Amarsinh Chaudhary and GPCC President Prabodh Rawal, votaries for Congress support to Vaghela, who pushed the decision through, have to contend with some carping colleagues. Says a former minister: "Personal gains for some of our leaders also tilted the balance. This will help them but where the party is concerned, its like getting on a sinking ship—Vaghela couldn’t even win his own Lok Sabha seat, let alone get his supporters elected. He goes, we go. He stays, we get cut slowly." The latter is a point of worry with the Congress as Vaghela, though belonging to the Kshatriya caste, has been fashioning himself as a champion of the backwards, especially the OBCs.

The seven-member ministry sworn in with Vaghela has two OBCs—Jasabhai Barad and Madhubhai Thakore, one SC, Kantibhai Solanki, and an ST, Anil Joshiara. OBCs constitute around 40 per cent of the population, while SCs and STs constitute about 21 per cent. Besides, Vaghela’s RSS-BJP background and his declarations about following the policies of the BJP government may not endear him to Muslims, who account for 15 per cent of the population. In the past, wooing Kshatriyas, Harijans, Adivasis, and Muslims (KHAM) proved fruitful to the Congress, especially when Madhavsinh Solanki was chief minister.

 "We will run a legal and political battle against them. Our case is strong, our ground is strong. This governor allowed them time for horse-trading and has enabled a corrupt man to put a corrupt government in place. It is going to see a coalescing of negative forces—bad administrators, black marketeers and corrupt ministers," says former chief minister Keshubhai Patel. Unfortunately for the BJP, it miscalculated Vaghela’s ability to grab power. After his government was toppled in September, former chief minister Suresh Mehta promised to take the battle to court and the "streets of Gujarat". The party moved the Delhi High Court last month and held a series of protests in all districts. But miscalculation, and the lack of a strong and swift response, including a demand for fresh elections, finally went against the BJP.

BJP leaders were counting on the Congress not supporting Vaghela after its ongoing tussle with the UF in Uttar Pradesh. Vaghela is known to be close to the UF, particularly Mulayam Singh Yadav. The BJP also felt that its agitation against Governor Krishnapal Singh would restrain him from helping Vaghela to come to power. Both the ideas fell through—the Governor asked the MJP and the BJP to prove their majority; and a day later the Congress declared unconditional support to Vaghela. For the BJP, the final attempt to stop Vaghela came in a petition before the Gujarat High Court, challenging the invitation of the governor to the MJP and the BJP to prove their majority before him at the Raj Bhawan, and not at the assembly. The petitioner, a BJP legislator, said the governor had not honoured the majority proved by the Suresh Mehta government on several occasions.

That the two-judge bench chose to hear the petition at 8 am on October 23, the morning of the swearing-in ceremony, rather than the usual time three hours later, kept BJP hopes high till the end. "They may stay the ceremony, after all why should he hear the petition at an unusually early hour," former minister Ashok Bhatt said. But hopes faded when Vaghela was sworn in and the court refused a stay after day-long arguments.

Some senior BJP leaders feel that the immediate events augur well for the party in an inevitable mid-term poll. They feel that the "chaff" has been cleared out—that is the MLAs Vaghela was able to win or buy over were largely those he chose as members of the party’s selection committee. And again he may face problems in future if he fails to keep the breed happy. Keeping this calculations in mind, the BJP looks to the future—and an electorate which it hopes will be unforgiving. Says Keshubhai Patel: "We placed a small band of workers against the Congress trump card (Rajesh Khanna) and won Gandhinagar after our government was ousted. In the eyes of the people the BJP has not fallen. They are our future."