Banners warning that the BJP will face opposition across the state if it fails to withdraw Union Minister Parshottam Rupala’s nomination from Rajkot are dotted in the narrow lanes of the Rajput-dominated areas of Umrith in Anand. It is the same area where Rajput community members expelled BJP leaders who ventured out to campaign last week.
Similar scenes occurred in Hamidpur and Ahima villages where members of the Kshatriya community were harassed and prevented Bharatiya Janata Party Workers from Anand’s Lok Sabha candidate Mitch Patel’s election campaign. Community members say the protests are a manifestation of “many issues over the years” that have been troubling the Kshatriya family.
Former BJP MP in Umrith municipality, Rajwatsinh Rawalji, who claims to have distanced himself from the party since the Rupala controversy, says the Kshatriya community has been hurt by the PM Narendra ModiHis silence on this issue. “Even if Modi asks us to drop the matter, we will ask him why he is silent,” he says, adding that the incident has enraged the community which had been abandoning many issues for a long time.
“You can see a pattern where the Kshatriyas have been marginalized… They (BJP) have ignored Kshatriya leaders in the state like Pradipsinh Jadeja and Bhupendra Chudasama. At the national level, even people like VK Singh have been removed. The number of Kshatriya candidates in the Lok Sabha polls is minimal. “We remained silent because of our faith in Modiji, but he did not speak a single word when Rupala commented to hurt our dignity,” says Rawalji.
Digvijaesinh Rawalji, a 25-year-old Rajput, echoes similar views. “We were pledged by Kuldevi (the patron deity) that we will crush the BJP this time because it takes our society for granted… The comments made by Rupala were disgraceful but what is even more insulting is that Modi has maintained silence on the matter instead of intervening and changing The candidate.”
In Umrith, youth from the Rajput-Kshatriya community are busy coordinating a grand meeting of several Kshatriya village leaders to take a ‘pledge’ and start a campaign to ensure the community votes against the BJP this time. “The Kshatriya community in villages across the region have given similar unbreakable vows,” says Digvijaesinh.
About 12 kilometers away in the village of Sundalpura, the community made a “pledge,” but admitted that the Congress “doesn’t feel at home.”
The current anger of the dominant Kshatriyas in Anand has its roots in the rivalry with the Patel community known to dominate the political administration of the state. The Anand Lok Sabha constituency has nearly 58 per cent of the Kshatriya population.
In the district, which was a traditional stronghold of the Congress party until the 2022 Assembly elections, the Kshatriyas have vowed to “vote against the BJP to destroy its arrogance” — a decision that is resonating among loosely knit groups of the community in different parts of the constituency. However, they say they “don’t belong” to Congress either.
Ironically, late Prime Minister Madhavsinh Solanki belonged to Charotar district in central Gujarat, of which Anand is a part. He is known for the famous Kham (Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, and Muslim) experiment that helped the Congress party win a record number of seats in the Assembly in 1985, when it also relied on the wave of sympathy in the wake of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s campaign. Assassinated, the party won 149 seats out of 182.
Solanki’s son, Bharatsinh, won from Anand in 2004 and 2009 and became Union minister. While villagers discuss the “caste-influenced” voting pattern in the district, they say the Congress will benefit from fielding Kshatriyas against BJP’s Mitesh Patel. Amit Chavda is the sitting MLA who is also Madhavsinh Solanki’s nephew and grandson of five-term Lok Sabha MP from Anand, Ishwar Chavda.
“The fact that the Lok Sabha contest is between the BJP’s Patel candidate and the Kshatriya candidate will definitely dilute the BJP’s vote share,” says Kiritsinh Zala, 40, a farmer. “The organizational structure of the BJP in the region includes only leaders Patel from top to bottom… If you see the vote percentage in the first phase Uttar Pradesh“At a time when the Kshatriyas are also angry, this is a clear indication that there is fatigue and that the Modi wave is over.”
In their election campaigns, while Mitesh clings to the BJP’s campaign idea of a third term for Modi, the Chavdas clung to the Kshatriya’s anger, citing Lord Ram as the “first and supreme Kshatriya warrior”.
The Congress won the seat after getting a vote share of 51.57% in 2009. Ten years later, the BJP’s vote share had risen to 57.10%, while the Congress’ share had fallen to 39.27%. The Congress won four of the seven Lok Sabha polls in Anand after 1991. While the BJP went on to win the seat in 2014 and 2019, after the 2022 Assembly elections, the Congress was reduced to rubble in its stronghold when it lost Bursad, which it held Madhavsinh Solanki, for the first time in electoral history.
Soon after, the BJP also took over the reins of the coveted dairy cooperative, Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Limited, known as Amul, which had eluded the BJP since its inception in 1946.
“The BJP will face problems in the Assembly segments where the Kshatriya community dominates in Anand… The BJP has a strong base in the urban parts of the constituency where the Patel community is dominant, but in Rural Anand, it will be difficult for them.”
BJP leaders in the region are dismissive of the protests and are relying on Prime Minister Modi, who is scheduled to address a public rally in the region next week.