Rural losses in Gujarat Panchayat bypolls a wake up call for Congress

Of the 30 that went to the bypolls, three were district panchayat seats and the rest taluka panchayat seats. The BJP won 26

After achieving success in 2015 in rural body elections, the Congress in Gujarat is struggling to hold its ground.

If the recent results to panchayat bypolls are anything to go by, the opposition party in Gujarat is losing the narrative and unable to capitalise or exploit rural discontent and anger at the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Unless the party unleashes a campaigning blitz in 2020, the polls to municipal corporations and municipalities, as well as district and taluka panchayat levels later this year, might undo its 2015 success, say political analysts and observers.

Further, the scenario could worsen in the upcoming village panchayat elections, which are not contested on party symbols and the candidates later declare their affiliations.

In 2015, while the BJP swept all the six municipal corporations and 42 of the 56 municipalities, the Congress won 22 of the 31 district panchayats and 134 of the 230 taluka panchayats.

However, in the recent bypolls, the Congress failed to capitalise on farm distress.

Of the 30 that went to the bypolls on December 29, three were district panchayat seats and the rest taluka panchayat seats. The BJP won 26 of the 30. Earlier the ruling party had won three taluka panchayat seats unopposed, taking its tally to 29 of the 33 seats in the bypolls.

The BJP had won the three taluka panchayat seats of Poshina in Sabarkantha district and Sutrapada in Gir-Somnath district.

Of the three district panchayat seats, two were in Ahmedabad district and one in Porbandar. The Congress won in Ahmedabad while the BJP in Porbandar.

According to political analyst Achyut Yagnik, the results highlight a continual structural weakness in the Congress in Gujarat, shown in the fact that the party has been unable to rally round farmers within its broad tent.

“The Congress is structurally weak and the BJP is comparatively powerful since it is ruling in both the state and at the Centre. The Congress should figure out why it is unable to put forward its pro-farmer views before the rural crowd,” says Yagnik.

As such, 2019 has been a tough year in rural Gujarat, especially the agrarian regions of Kutch-Saurashtra and North Gujarat. In the last one year, the regions saw flood and drought. This got aggravated owing to water shortage due to scanty rainfall in the state, forcing the state government to cut water supply for summer sowing last year.

The regions have also seen farmers’ unrest in the wake of insufficient minimum support prices (MSP).

Also, the state government has come under fire over the multi-crore groundnut scam. Just ahead of the assembly elections in 2017, the government announced purchasing groundnut from farmers at Rs4,500 per quintal when the market prices were lower. However, several officials and local politicians had allegedly sold the groundnut procured from farmers to oil mills and adulterated stocks of groundnut by mixing sand and pebbles. There were instances of fire at godowns in alleged attempts to destroy evidence.

Many say this didn’t go down well with farmers in the agrarian regions of Kutch-Saurashtra and North Gujarat. This, along with other farm issues, reflected in the 2017 Assembly elections. As against 115 seats of the 182 in the Gujarat Assembly in 2012, the BJP could manage just 99 in 2017 with the Congress’ tally climbing from 61 to 77. The BJP lost to the Congress in Saurashtra, an agrarian region, apart from some central seats, including tribal areas.

On its part, the Congress is confident of repeating the 2015 success in 2020.

“While we lost in the taluka panchayat bypolls, we won two district panchayats, which have a large number of rural seats, by big margins. We have begun our campaign and will be raising pro-farmer issues,” Manish Doshi, spokesperson for the Gujarat unit of the Congress, told Business Standard.

According to Doshi, while the party will raise farm loan waiver and 100 per cent crop insurance as primary issues, it will also focus on addressing unemployment in rural areas as well as the state government’s handling of the recent locust attack in North Gujarat.

Meanwhile, the gram panchayat polls in February might throw an early hint on how the polls later this year will turn out to be.