Gujarat BJP missing master fixer Amit Shah, directionless campaign banking on Modi’s appeal

AHMEDABAD: Lok Janshakti Party had put up a mysterious candidate Kalim Abdul Latif Sheikh in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections from Panchmahals, a seat from where Congress stalwart Shankersinh Vaghela was contesting. A resident of neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, Kalim came to Godhra only for the polls and surprisingly bagged 23,615 votes with a high-voltage campaign. Vaghela lost to BJP’s Prabhatsinh Chauhan by just 2,081 votes because a large chunk of Muslim votes went to Sheikh.
It is not a coincidence that the BJP’s in charge of Panchmahals seat was Amit Shah, Narendra Modi’s sharp-shooter. If there is one person whose political advice Modi would always give into, it is Shah’s. He couldn’t have given the job of fixing Vaghela to anyone else. Shah specialized in putting up independent candidates or propping up candidates of smaller parties who have potential to inflict damage on the main rival. Besides, being a home minister, he had the clout and muscle to bulldoze potential trouble makers.
Every election campaign in Gujarat so far, ever since Narendra Modi became chief minister in 2001, has been orchestrated by him and Shah. Modi was always the face of the campaign, apart from being the master strategist, while Shah was his lynchpin — someone who would fix a problem by hook or crook.
With the awesome twosome missing in action this time — Modi on a whirlwind election tour and Shah shouldering the responsibility of the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh — the Gujarat unit of BJP is struggling to achieve a 26/26 score for Modi in his home state. In their absence, a quartet consisting of state BJP leaders Bhiku Dalsania, Vijay Rupani, Shankar Chaudhary and Parshottam Rupala is calling the shots, but falling short of ideas.
“These leaders are not hands-on like Modi or Amitbhai. The campaign is not cohesive and it also smacks of over-confidence given Modi's popularity and the presumption that everything is hunky-dory,” said an insider who feels the Congress may still steal away about half-a-dozen seats. He feels that even though the UP elections will last till the final phase of polling, there was a dire need for a Modi blitzkrieg and Amit's recall for at least a week before polling day — April 30.
BJP leaders say that even in the 2012 assembly elections Modi had made all-out legal efforts to get the Supreme Court's embargo on Shah's entry in Gujarat lifted to enable him to coordinate the campaign. “Amit's full focus then was not only to win his own seat (Naranpura), but also to target Gujarat Congress president Arjun Modhwadia (Porbandar) and the leader of opposition Shantisinh Gohil (Bhavnagar). He succeeded in felling both,” said another BJP leader.
BJP leaders feel that with Gujarat slipping off the radar for both Modi and Shah, the Congress may get to retain some of its bastions like Anand, Dahod and Bardoli. “We are still sure of crossing the tally of 20 seats for BJP in 1999,” said a key Modi aide.