The Hindu : High-voltage campaign ends in Gujarat

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 11, 2002

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High-voltage campaign ends in Gujarat

By Manas Dasgupta

GANDHINAGAR Dec. 10. The din of electioneering ended at 5 p.m. today in Gujarat where 3.28 crore voters will go to the polls on Thursday to elect 181 representatives in the Assembly in an acid test for the BJP's `communal card'. For the first time in the State, the polling will be entirely with the electronic voting machines.

The election to the Surat West seat has been countermanded due to the death of the BJP candidate and Minister of State for Law and Judiciary, Hemmant Chapatwala, on Monday.

While the BJP is contesting all the 182 seats, the Congress has put up nominees for 180 seats, conceding one seat each to the CPI and the CPI(M) in the Saurashtra region.

Besides the two main rivals for power in the State, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Samata Party and the Samajwadi Party are also contesting some seats apart from a large number of independents, accounting for the 1,000 or so candidates in the fray.

Contrary to the earlier apprehensions that the campaigning could turn out to be a bloody affair in view of the communal tension, it remained completely peaceful barring a couple of incidents of scuffle between BJP and Congress workers, and in both the cases the Congress candidates were at the receiving end.

The police, however, are not taking any chances and are making elaborate security arrangements for the polling day. Besides the local police, 167 companies of para-military forces, the State Reserve Police and the Rapid Action Force were being deployed in the State to ensure free and fair elections.

Special forces would be deployed in the sensitive and minority-dominated areas to avoid any disturbances during the polling.

Though senior and national leaders of both the main parties, including the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, his deputy, L.K. Advani, the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, and several Congress Chief Ministers, spent considerable time addressing a large number of public meetings, the star campaigners were the Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, and the State Congress president, Shankarsinh Waghela, who indulged in verbal attacks and counter-attacks. For the BJP, the campaigning had started well in advance when Mr. Modi launched his `gaurav rath yatra' in September, but the Congress, after the initial euphoria when Mr. Waghela was appointed the State unit president, slowed down its campaign waiting for the right time to peak.

As against the BJP's high-profile campaign holding public meetings addressed by State and national leaders — on December 9 alone the party held 80 public meetings — the Congress was relying more on personal contacts with the voters and small group meetings to erase from their minds the "communal virus'', if any.

Except Mr. Vajpayee, who in his four public meetings refrained from touching upon communal issues and instead advised the people not to vote on communal lines and his deputy only making subtle references to Godhra and the post-Godhra riots, the BJP campaign otherwise followed Mr. Modi's "Godhra and Miyan Musharraf'' lineharping on terrorism and the security of the people.

For the Congress, the main line of attack was the "failure'' of the BJP Government to perform, highlighting the local problems such as water and power shortage, slow and tardy post-earthquake rehabilitation, price rise, and other issues and promising the voters more jobs, removal of electricity meters from the farm lands and "security against the BJP misrule".

CRPF deployed

Anjali Mody reports from New Delhi:

Over one and a half lakh jawans of the Central Reserve Police Force have been deployed in Gujarat in preparation for Thursday's Assembly elections. The Home Ministry, making this announcement, said the CRPF Inspector-General in charge of Operation, K.T.D. Singh, had been nominated as the Forces co-ordinator for the elections.

Totalling 163 companies, the Central force is spread across the State, with the largest number — 31 companies — deputed to Ahmedabad district, which saw some of the worst communal violence.

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