The election conversation, these days, is riveted around wondering how Hardik Patel, one of the three newsmakers in Gujarat, will affect the final result. Will the Patidars standing with him vote against the BJP?
Will Hardik Patel be successful in halting Narendra Modi’s winning streak in Gujarat, or will he go down in history as another Keshubhai Patel? Before we get to the voting trends among Patidars, let’s go back a bit.
When Patidars Left Keshubhai Patel as Well
November 2012, Rajkot, the mainstay of Patidars: Campaigning was in full swing for the Assembly elections in Gujarat. Senior Patidar leader and Modi’s staunch opponent Keshubhai Patel headed a jam-packed rally. Even before he reached the stage, calls of “Bapa tum sangharsh karo, hum tumhare saath hain” (father carry on the struggle, we are with you) could be heard.
In his long political career, Keshubhai had heard the slogan many times, but this time it was different. This time he was asking for votes for himself. Getting onto the mic the first thing he did was to ask the people assembled to ensure that the BJP won no seats from there.
When the result came out, in Rajkot BJP had won 35 seats, Congress 14 and Keshubhai’s party a mere 2 seats.
In 2007, BJP had won 43 seats from there and Congress had won 14. So it is not like the BJP remained unaffected by Keshubhai Patel’s agitation. They did suffer losses on 7-8 seats due to the Patel factor, but it did not stop them from coming to power. Keshubhai’s party got 4 percent of the vote.
Patidars Don't Vote as One
The first mistake we make while talking about the Patidars is that we assume if Patel is anti-BJP, all the Partidars will vote for party X or party Y. This is simply not true.
The Patidars are the most influential caste in Gujarat, but they are divided in their voting pattern. There are four sub-castes of Patidars – Leuva, Kadva, Anjana and Satpanthi. Leuvas are the more economically well-off Patels, while the Kadvas less so.
Traditionally, the Kadvas have voted for the BJP, but thanks to Keshubhai, the Leuvas in Saurashtra did not give as many votes to the BJP in 2012. Although in 2014, both the groups again got together to vote for the BJP.
Now, the situation is changing. The well-to-do Leuvas are still with the BJP, but the struggling Kadvas are standing with Hardik Patel for reservation.
Urban Patels Don't Vote the Same as Those in Villages
Caste isn’t the only factor in the voting pattern of Patidars, class is one too. Those living in cities vote totally differently from those in villages. Patidars in Sabarkantha don’t vote the same as those in Ahmedabad. For those living in cities, water and electricity are not as significant issues as they are for the farmers living in Banaskantha.
Urban, middle-class Patidars have different issues and a very different Gujarati identity. Patidars who moved to cities from villages in search of a better life have been the BJP’s traditional vote bank. This is the vote bank that has helped the party come to power in every election, despite the BJP’s falling out with the rural Patidars.
Not All Patidars Are Unhappy With the BJP
The BJP are worried because of Hardik Patels’ agitation, but they are also well aware of the class divide within the community. Why would the economically well-off Patels, who have been reaping the benefits of their share in power for the last 20 years, go for an unknown option?
In Gujarat, BJP is known as a Patel party. BJP has 44 Patidar MLAs in the Assembly, of which 10 are ministers. The Deputy Chief Minister and state party chief are also Patel.
Vallabh Patel, Lalji Patel, car and flat gifting businessman Savji Dholakia, and people who buy PM Modi’s suit for Rs 4.3 crore form this rich business community of Patels, which has seen Vibrant Gujarat and gained from the development and investment that happened during the Modi government. For these people, quitting the BJP is a tough call.
Gujarat has approximately 6,100 industrial units with a turnover of over Rs 10 crore. Of these 1,700 units belong to Patels. According to an estimate, the largest chunk of the Patidar population is middle-class, it is only a small section that is poor, and it is this section that is supporting Hardik Patel.
How Effective Is Hardik Patel Going to Be?
This question will truly be answered only when the election results come out, but those who have seen the time of Keshubhai Patel believe that with just the support of young, poor, unemployed Patidars, Hardik Patel won’t be able to prevent the BJP from returning to power.
It is true that those Patels who depend upon farming or those who don’t have the capital for business have fallen back in society. The destruction of small-scale farming due to industrialisation, lack of good employment opportunities in cities and the privatisation of education have left the Kadva Patels feeling cheated.
Despite being at a higher class in the community, the Anjana Patels get reservation and their children are doctors and engineers with government jobs, meanwhile the children of Kadva Patels are sitting at home struggling for jobs.
The spearheads of Hardik Patel’s movement are these same youths, the ones who are unable to afford education due to the privatisation of universities, and the ones who are unable to finds jobs, after somehow managing to get a degree, because they don’t enjoy reservation.
There are just 52 universities in Gujarat, of these 45 are private institutes. Only 7 are government universities. This is the reason that the 2015 Patidar agitation really caught force at the five private universities in north and central Gujarat.
Hardik Patel and the Congress have their eyes on these dissatisfied Patidars. But the problem is that even if this group is able to get the votes of dissatisfied Patidars for candidates supporting Hardik Patel, at most they will be able to displace BJP on 10 seats, no more than that.
So the question is, is the media just hyping up Hardik Patel?
(This article was originally published in Hindi Quint. Shankar Arnimesh is a prominent journalist. Views expressed are the author’s own and The Quint neither endorses them nor is responsible for the same.)
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