The Hindu : Kutch-Saurashtra region crucial for Congress

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 12, 2002

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National

Kutch-Saurashtra region crucial for Congress

By Manas Dasgupta

RAJKOT DEC. 11. The Congress' hopes of returning to power in Gujarat largely depend on its performance in the vast Kutch-Saurashtra region. With local problems such as shortage of water and power getting precedence over the communal and castiest factors, the party seems poised to perform better in this region now than in 1998 when it could claim merely six of the 58 seats in the Assembly, conceding 51 seats to the BJP and one to an independent who has since joined the Congress.

Traditionally, the Kutch-Saurashtra region has given overwhelming support to a party it favoured. Till the 1995 elections, the Congress captured nearly 90 per cent of the seats while the opposition parties could pick up a few seats here and there. Aided by the "Keshubhai Patel factor", the BJP reversed the trend in 1995 and 1998, capturing nearly 90 per cent of the seats. It may not be a "back to the pre-1990 scenario" entirely. But the BJP is sure to lose some crucial seats in the region this time.

Traditionally, communal sentiments have never surfaced in the Kutch-Saurashtra region and this year when the north and central Gujarat regions were burning in the aftermath of the Godhra train carnage, barring a few stray incidents in Bhavnagar and Rajkot districts, there was no communal violence in the entire Kutch-Saurashtra region. And though the Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, was drawing sizeable crowds in his "gaurav rath yatra" through the region, it failed to create any impact on the voters here.

"What use of the Hindutva if people do not get clean potable water or power to run their pumps to irrigate their lands,'' asked Shamjibhai Antala, who has been doing a yeoman service for the conservation of water. The "claims" of the BJP of supplying Narmada waters to the villages have by and large remained on paper. By and large, the villages get water once in three days and in the urban centres, the supply is even more erratic.

The municipalities, which remained in the hands of the administrators appointed by the Government for the last two years as the BJP Government kept postponing elections five times for the fear of losing control on the local bodies, never bothered to solve the water problem. In many municipal areas, water is supplied directly from the source.

Agricultural production has suffered immensely in the region which is facing the third consecutive drought. The erratic power supply has dashed the hopes of the farmers of even partly salvaging the standing crops by drawing sub-soil water. Mr. Modi's call to to give drip irrigation equipment to girls as dowry instead of gold and silver was shouted down by angry farmers. "Drip irrigation can work if only there is steady power and water supply, where are they?'' they asked.

Kutch district is still reeling under the impact of the devastating earthquake in 2001. With bureaucratic delays and red tape delaying the finalisation of revised town planning schemes, the people are totally disillusioned with the BJP. They are not amused by the claims that the Congress Government in Maharashtra took 15 years to rehabilitate the quake-hit in Latur, or the rehabilitation in Kutch was faster than Kobe, Japan. Though the Congress network in Kutch is weak and lacks effective leaders, a reversal of the 1998 trend, when the BJP won five seats in the border district, is not ruled out. A major problem the BJP is facing in the Saurashtra region this time is the absence of the Keshubhai Patel factor. In the last two elections, the people of Saurashtra overwhelmingly voted for the BJP to make "our man" the Chief Minister. If they punished the Congress in the last elections for ditching Mr. Patel, the same yardstick may work against the BJP and Mr. Modi this time. Though Mr. Patel is campaigning for the party, the emphasis on returning the BJP to power is clearly missing.

Usually the two dominant communities, Patels and Kshatriyas, stay in the opposite camps, but it may not be such a clear division this time. While the Patels are disillusioned with Keshubhai's ouster, the Kshatriyas are rejuvenated by Shankersinh Waghela's appointment as the PCC president.

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