Gujarat election: Can the Hardik Alpesh Jignesh troika end BJP's 22 year rule?
On November 18, the air in Sarbhan village in Bharuch district was thick with anticipation. The day before, three 'sex' CDs allegedly involving Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) convenor Hardik Patel had surfaced and were discussed threadbare on several TV channels. A crowd of around 10,000 had gathered to hear Hardik speak. More than the speech, it would seem, people were eager to see how the 24 year old would react in his first public meeting since the CDs.
Hardik's convoy of SUVs kicked up dust as it arrived in the village. As he alighted, 10 Patel girls welcomed him, applying tilak on his forehead, an indication of what was to come. Hardik climbed on to the stage and proceeded to tear into the BJP. "I have lived as many years as the BJP has been in power in Gujarat?. Instead of making a sex CD of a 24 year old, unmarried boy, the BJP should make CDs to show people what it has done for Gujarat in these 22 years. Why farmers are in distress in the state and why there is joblessness though it has ruled Gujarat for two decades," he thundered, in chaste Gujarati. The crowd erupted. If the CDs were intended to paint Patel as a sex fiend, they seemed to have had the opposite effect; he's very much a local hero.
At another roadside gathering, Hardik continues in the same vein. There's no trace of unease in his voice, no hint of embarrassment over the 'scandal'. "The time has come to defeat the tanashahi (imperiousness) of the BJP," he tells his audience. "Using unethical means and misusing power to defeat political rivals reflect its arrogance. The more it resorts to unethical means, the more the people will react against it."
Four days later, in what is easily the most significant political realignment of the state elections due on December 9 and 14, Hardik announced his tie up with the Congress. His decision was made easy by the fact that the party acceded to his key demands, including reservations for Patels, setting up a commission to probe the atrocities on Patels post the August 25, 2015 rally in Ahmedabad.
How a 24 year old, not even old enough to contest an assembly seat, has become the BJP's biggest electoral headache is certainly the biggest story of the Gujarat elections. But it is not the only one. Two other significant political challengers have ensured that, for the BJP at
