Gujarat Election 2012 Analysis

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The results of Gujarat Election clearly indicated that Narendra Modi has not only the leadership qualities and capability but he is a shrewd Strategist far more competent than anyone in the political structure of India in current years.

There were two major parties contesting this election - Congress and the ruling BJP. There was however a third party - |Gujarat Parivartan Party, which was recently formed by Keshubhai Patel, who quit BJP due to differences with Narendra Modi.

Post-independence history of Gujarat - In 1947, the new Indian government grouped the former princely states of Gujarat into three larger units; Saurashtra, Kutch, and Bombay state, which included the former British districts of Bombay Presidency together with most of Baroda state and the other former princely states of eastern Gujarat. In 1956, Bombay state was enlarged to include Kutch, Saurashtra, and parts of Hyderabad state and Madhya Pradesh in central India. The new state had a mostly Gujarati-speaking north and a Marathi-speaking south. Agitation by Marathi nationalists for their own state led to the split of Bombay state on linguistic lines; on 1 May 1960, it became the new states of Gujarat and Maharashtra. The first capital of Gujarat was Ahmedabad; which was moved to Gandhinagar in 1970.

Congress continued to govern Gujarat after the state's creation in 1960. During and after India's State of Emergency of 1975-1977, public support for the Congress Party eroded, but it continued to hold government until 1995. In the 1995 Assembly Polls, the Congress lost to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Keshubhai Patel came to power. His Government lasted only two years. The fall of that government was provoked by a split in the BJP led by Shankersinh Vaghela and has won most of the subsequent polls. In 2001, following the loss of two assembly seats in by-elections, Keshubhai Patel resigned and yielded power to Narendra Modi. The BJP retained a majority in the 2002 election, and Narendra Modi has since served as Chief Minister of the state. On 1 June 2007, Narendra Modi became the longest serving Chief Minister of Gujarat. The BJP retained a majority once again in 2007 and Narendra Modi turned the ruler of the State, once again.

2012 - Party Scenario and manifesto

BJP -  The ruling party had a clear edge in its leader - Shri Narendra Modi whose clean corrupt free image and determination to development and progress of Gujarat was at the heart of the people. BJP called its manifesto as "Sankalp Patra" - A commitment to act. 

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Images/Popup/2012/12/Manifesto-Summary-Eng.pdf

Congress - There was an atmosphere of accepted defeat with no clear announcement of who the leader should be. Moreover rather than campaigning alongside its manifesto ( http://www.gujaratcongress.org/english/wp-content/uploads/manifesto/latest_manifesto.pdf ) it decided to target the ruling party and  Narendra Modi stating that there was no development and no progress. This back fired as people of Gujarat had witnessed the progress.

GPP - there was no clear cut agenda or manifesto. This was a party with of 82 year old Keshubhai Patel and candidates who could not get the tickets from BJP. However Keshubhai is a much respected and very prominent person in Saurashtra region. 

Congress had also a game plan in which they were hoping to reap the fruits of this division in BJP and BJP votes. However people of Gujarat decided to cast their votes not on caste or religion and went in favour of the good governance and development model of Narendra Modi.

The failure of Congress is also attributed to poor leadership and corruption charges faced by them on national front. The campaign was outsourced to a company which created a series of blunders like publishing a photograph of Sri Lankan refugee camp showing that as of a malnutrition child and woman in Gujarat. 

Challenges faced by BJP -

Though BJP had a clear edge and a winning manifesto along with a proven model of Governance, development and progress, they had a stiff challenge this time from Main stream Media. For reasons unknown, it is widely seen in the circles that main news channels like NDTV, Timesnow, Hindustan Times etc. were clearly biased towards Congress and were hitting on every count against Narendra Modi. It must be noted here that their attack was never on BJP but Narendra Modi. Every debate was carefully planned with a panel of 3 V/s 1 or 5 V/s2.  Main stream media was looking towards this election as a battle ground for Narendra Modi to become the PM of India. On most of their debates the question was in line towards nationalist leadership goal of Narendra Modi.

It was also noted during this election that none of the parties had raised any issues of 2002 post Godhara riots and tried to re-surface the scars left by those riots. However NDTV decided to broadcast and highlight the riots and did show the lack of development in Muslim areas and times declared that muslins in Gujarat were living in ghettos. This move of NDTV to resurface the old scars and divide the country on religion looks to be very suspicious.

Opinion Polls - 

Most of the opinion polls had forecasted a clear win for BJP ranging from 110 -130.

Results:

Gujarat Result Status
Status Known For 182 out of 182 Constituencies
Party	Won	Leading	Total
Bharatiya Janata Party	115	0	115
Indian National Congress	61	0	61
Nationalist Congress Party	2	0	2
Janata Dal (United)	1	0	1
Others	3	0	3

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