An angry Gujarat awaits Vajpayee

By Harish Khare

NEW DELHI, JUNE 2. Two days ago, Gujarat Samachar, largest circulating daily in Gujarat had carried on its front page a four-column photograph of demonstrators laying siege to Ahmedabad's Circuit House, where a visiting Mr. L. K. Advani was camping for the day. An inset in the photograph showed a forlorn- looking Mr. Advani being kept company by a police officer. The caption said the Home Minister was whisked away to safety by the back-door.

It is a minor detail that there is no back-door in the Circuit House, so there was perhaps no question of the man known as Sardar Patel II having to flee from the hostile demonstrators. It is also a minor, but relevant, detail that the Circuit House is located in the Shahi Bagh area, part of Mr. Advani's Lok Sabha constituency of Gandhinagar.

Yet, if Mr. Advani has not totally turned off his political antenna, he cannot be oblivious to the intensity of public anger against the BJP regime in Gujarat. Some discerning observers even suggest that if the Lok Sabha polls were to take place this week, Mr. Advani himself may find it difficult to repeat his winning performance in Gandhinagar.

It is to this angry Gujarat that the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, travels tomorrow morning. Mr. Vajpayee had shown extraordinary sensitivity visiting the disaster-hit Kutch district on January 29, just days after the January 26 killer earthquake. That visit served the purpose of reassuring a shell- shocked State that the entire country shared its pain and would do its bit to help the State overcome the crisis.

Now, Mr. Vajpayee will have an opportunity to see for himself to what extent - and with what success and sincerity - the task of reconstruction and relief has been addressed. In particular, he would have to reassure himself how effectively the massive and generous relief from outside Gujarat has been used.

Predictably, the Keshubhai Patel administration will want the Prime Minister to believe that the State Government has done a credible job under trying circumstances. At the same time the State Government can also be expected to see to it that Mr. Vajpayee does not get to hear any complaints or angry voices. As it is, Mr. Vajpayee is being made to re-dedicate a couple of power and railways projects, signalling a return of normality. That would not - and cannot - paper over the angerand bitterness over the official lethargy, indifference and sheer corruption in the relief and reconstruction efforts.

In fact, the Prime Minister would be faced with a difficult choice. The easy option for him would be to play a loyal BJP leader and give a certificate of good conduct to a fellow-BJP Chief Minister. The other difficult choice is to find words and the body language to assure the people of Gujarat that they had available to them a court of appeal higher than a dysfunctional State administration. The vast middle class, core of the BJP constituency in Gujarat, finds itself shaken to its bones over the collapse of the Madhavpura Mercantile Cooperative Bank and over evidence that the malefactors had patrons among the powerful in Gandhinagar.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : National
Next     : Gujarat's sops for quake victims