Keshubhai safe, despite party debacle

By Manas Dasgupta

GANDHINAGAR, JAN. 23. The problems facing the Gujarat Chief Minister, Mr Keshubhai Patel, in the wake of the ruling BJP's debacle in the panchayat and municipal corporation elections in the State in September last year, are as good as over.

According to party sources, the much-fancied inquiry by the Bharat Barot committee into the causes of the party's debacle may end in a whimper. Though the report was submitted to the State unit president, Mr. Rajendrasinh Rana, last month, the party is unlikely to take any action either against the heads of the executive or the organisational wings and is likely to end with some minor changes at the lower levels.

One reason for which Mr. Patel can consider himself to be safe at the helm of affairs despite the electoral reverses is that none of the dissident leaders including the Union Textile Minister, Mr. Kashiram Rana, and the State Industries Minister, Mr. Suresh Mehta, are presently willing to take over the mantle. They feel that the two years' time left before the next Assembly elections would be too short to ``mend the mess'' created by Mr. Patel in the State's economy that retarded its growth on various fronts.

The dissident leaders, it is learnt, feel that the way the affairs of the State was being run at present, the BJP was fast losing grounds in its strongest citadel and even the charisma of the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, may not be able to save the party. Taking over from Mr. Patel at this stage would only mean accepting responsibility for the party's most likely defeat in the next elections.

At one stage, the party high command was believed to be toying with the idea of replacing the Chief Minister with another ``Patel,'' the former Union Minister for Chemicals, Dr. A. K. Patel, but realising that the ``Patelism'' had failed to click in rural areas, the move has been dropped.

The inquiry report did not hold Mr. Patel responsible for the party's debacle despite the fact that he received the most serious drubbing at his home pitch. Both the municipal corporation and the district panchayat of his home district, Rajkot, have been captured by the Congress, and so was the taluka panchayat of his State Assembly constituency, Visavadar, in the neighbouring Junagadh district as well as its district panchayat. Only the Rajkot taluka panchayat has remained with the BJP by virtue of the majority of one seat but nine of the other 12 taluka panchayats have been captured by the Congress.

The inquiry conducted by a junior member of his Cabinet is learnt to have briefly recorded the disenchantment of the party cadre, who till recently held Mr. Patel in high esteem. In private conversation, some leaders admitted that the ``supreme arrogance'' that crept into the attitude and behaviour of Mr. Patel and some of his close associates like the Finance and Revenue Minister, Mr. Vajubhai Vala, could have caused the party's downfall, but that is not on the inquiry report.

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