Keshubhai rivals seek his removal

By Manas Dasgupta

GANDHINAGAR, OCT. 7. Both the victor, the Congress(I), and the vanquished, the BJP, in the recently concluded panchayat and municipal corporation elections in Gujarat have been hit by dissidence.

While a large number of leaders in the ruling BJP, including some Cabinet colleagues of the Chief Minister, Mr. Keshubhai Patel, have raised the leadership issue after the party's dismal show in the local elections, the Congress(I) has lost two of the 21 district panchayats it won, to the dissidents.

The party's impressive show in the local bodies elections was marred by the presence of dissidents in the elections for the presidents of the Ahmedabad and Kutch district panchayats with the leaders of the erstwhile Rashtriya Janata Party of the former Chief Minister, Mr. Shankarsinh Waghela, playing truant. Mr. Waghela's two trusted lieutenants, Mr. Madhubhai Thakore in Ahmedabad, and Mr. Babubhai Shah in Kutch, defeated the official nominees of the party for the presidential posts and got their own candidates elected to the office with the support of the BJP members.

Piqued by the unexpected reverses, a spokesman of the pradesh Congress(I) commented that Mr. Waghela's men had betrayed the party in the same way they had betrayed the BJP in 1995 when Mr. Patel was running his first term as the Chief Minister.

The party has suspended the newly-elected presidents and vice- presidents of the two district panchayats and has issued show cause notices to the dissidents including some ``original'' Congress(I) leaders like Mr. Motibhai Chavda, the former district party president, and Mr. Gunvant Makwana, party member of the State Assembly and son of the former MP, Mr. Narsinh Makwana.

The party has also lost the chance of electing its president for the Amreli district panchayat where both the Congress(I) and the BJP were tied at 15 seats each in the 31- member panchayat.

The remaining seat having gone to the Samata Party, an alliance partner of the BJP at the Centre, the Congress(I)'s Presidential candidate was defeated in the elections. The BJP had earlier won the Porbandar district panchayat, the only one to be captured by the BJP in the elections.

In the BJP, after the Jails Minister, Mr. Jaspal Singh, the Water Supply Minister, Mr. Narottam Patel, and the Minister of State for Youth and Cultural Affairs, Mr. Mahendra Trivedi, had raised questions about the advisability of continuing with Mr. Patel as the Chief Minister.

The latest to jump into the bandwagon of the dissidents was Mr. Patel's number two in the cabinet and the former Chief Minister, Mr. Suresh Mehta, who too has demanded disbanding the Bharat Barot inquiry committee appointed with the blessings of the Chief Minister to probe into the causes of the party's debacle.

Mr. Mehta's fax message to the party's national president, Mr. Bangaru Laxman, and the Union Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, suggesting constitution of a central committee to look into the party affairs in the State is considered to be significant by the political circles here.

Though he was known to be unhappy with Mr. Patel's style of functioning, he had never come out in the open despite the fact that he had refused to withdraw his resignation from the Patel cabinet which he had submitted in December, 1998, but not accepted by the Chief Minister.

The dissidents, after lying low for the last two and a half years with Mr. Patel ruling supreme in the State party and administrative affairs, have started regrouping themselves in the wake of the party's defeat in the local elections.

The dissident rank has started swelling and a murmur of protest against the leadership of Mr. Patel could be heard in the BJP Legislature Party as well.

The dissident MLAs, now claimed to be numbering about 50 in the 116-member BJP Legislature Party, had been holding meetings in Gandhinagar to chalk out their strategy to build up pressure on the party high command to replace Mr. Patel with someone acceptable to all sections of the party.

Mr. Narottam Patel and Mr. Mahendra Trivedi were not as forthright as Mr. Jaspal Singh to demand Mr. Patel's resignation, but they too have held the performance of the present Government substantially responsible for the party's poor showing in the local elections.

Mr. Narottam Patel, known to be a close confidant of the Union Textile Minister, Mr. Kashiram Rana, who is always tipped as a possible alternative to Mr. Patel to take over as the Chief Minister if the high command agreed for a change in the leadership, has raised strong objections against the appointment of the Bharat Barot committee.

Mr. Trivedi, who lately had been expressing his displeasure over Mr. Patel's leadership, was more vehement in criticism. ``our leaders have lost touch with the people which has contributed to the poll debacle,'' he said.

Even before the elections, Mr. Trivedi claimed to have forecast a BJP wash-out in the local elections at least in his home district, Bhavnagar, and had pleaded with the Chief Minister not to hold him responsible for the adverse results since he was not consulted in the selection of candidates.

In fact, after Mr. Patel, the partymen's ire was directed against the State unit general secretary, Mr. Sanjay Joshi, a RSS ``prant pracharak'' on deputation in the BJP. Both Mr. Jaspal Singh and Mr. Trivedi claimed that the candidate selection was entirely left to Mr. Joshi who had ``messed up things.'' Incidentally, Mr. Joshi is the replacement for Mr. Narendra Modi, after the latter was shifted to the Centre in the wake of the rebellion by Mr. Waghela in 1995.

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