Let's Knock Out The Stuffing

Chief minister Narendra Modi has virtually decimated the Congress in the state. A stunned Congress is still groping for words after its humiliation as the bjp swept the five big municipal corporations in the state with over two-thirds majority and also pocketed the ‘small change’ of four municipalities for good measure. The Congress-ruled Rajkot municipal corporation fell with theBJP bagging 59 of the 69 seats. In Surat, it walked away with 90 of the 102 seats. In Vadodara, the saffron brigade bagged 74 of the total 84, in Bhavnagar 39 of the 51 and in Jamnagar 37 of the 51. Padra Una, Mehsana and Morbi town municipalities also voted saffron.

Having already snatched the Ahmedabad municipal corporation in the first round and 17 of the district’s 23 panchayats as well as the bulk of the taluka panchayats across the state in the second, this hat-trick makes the Congress rout complete. As things stand, within a span of three months, Modi has managed to bowl out the Congress and stump dissidents in the bjp. He also ruthlessly weeded out all dissidents when giving out tickets and also replaced the bulk of sitting corporators to overcome the anti-incumbency factor. Thus, in Rajkot, half the candidates were new, he sent three-fourth of the members packing in Jamnagar and changed the entire lot lock, stock and barrel in Vadodara, Surat and Bhavnagar. Obviously, the replacements were mostly hand-picked loyalists.

The Congress had no strategy in place for the polls, no one at the state level to take charge of the campaign. The day the election results were declared, frustrated party workers gathered at the state HQ and hurled the choicest abuses at their leaders who were, of course, missing. Many state-level party leaders hold Sonia Gandhi’s political advisor Ahmed Patel responsible for the mess. "He wants rootless wonders like himself to head the party set-up in the state. No wonder the party suffered," said a prominent local leader.