Bhupendra Achieves What Modi Couldn’t Achieve in Gujarat

BJP’s Bhupendra Patel is all set to become Chief Minister of Gujarat again. He has rewritten history by returning to power with the highest number of seats in the Gujarat assembly.

Bhupendra will break the past record set by Madhavsinh Solanki, who won 149 assembly seats in 1985. Even the charismatic Narendra Modi had not been able to surpass this record number of Madhavsinh Solanki. Under Modi, BJP won 127 seats in 2002. It was the highest number of seats ever won by the BJP in Gujarat.

One-year-old Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel has successfully discarded the anti-incumbency factor that may have gone against the 27-year rule of BJP in Gujarat.

BJP returned to power for the seventh time in Gujarat. Now it equals the Left Front government’s long stint in West Bengal.

BJP had battled with anti-incumbency in 2017. It could win in 99 seats while the Congress got 77 seats. But in 2022 Gujarat Congress itself was in a mess. Because of this, the grand old party could not cash up the loopholes of the BJP.

All of a sudden AAP entered Gujarat politics and started projecting itself as the BJP’s main rival. In the eyes of the voters, the main opposition party Congress seemed to be less interested to give a good fight to the BJP. Added to it the AAP was not a major force at grassroot level. This fragmented the anti-BJP vote bank resulting in pro-BJP voting.

AAP was unable to reach the double-digit in seat numbers. But it cut into the Congress prospects in tribal pockets.

For the AAP Gujarat elections proved to be a step up in national politics. Now AAP will be recognised as a national party. The historic loss of Congress in Gujarat makes the party almost irrelevant in the state. In the future, its voters may prefer to shift towards the AAP.