BJP mulls Patidar for CM face

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 19

In Gujarat, while the BJP contends the situation “very much under control”, apparently it is “not quite how its top leadership would have preferred it to be”. There are now speculations that party chief Amit Shah may be having a change of heart over his original plan to go with incumbent Chief Minister Vijay Rupani as the BJP face in the coming elections.

Party leaders directly involved with assimilating ground inputs say “as on date and in given circumstances, the BJP appears to be winning between 105 and 122 seats” in the 182-member House. “Perhaps around 115 seats, but not 150, as the party leaders have been projecting. But there are still 20 days to go (for the first phase), anything can happen,” they say.

The main reason for this is the hype around Patidar leader Hardik Patel. While the BJP leadership is trying to get him by their side, or so claim the local sources, Hardik’s one-point agenda is reservation for his community, which makes it kind of tough for any negotiations to fructify.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, they say, is against any kind of reservation.

So, the only other plausible solution for the party is to project a Patidar leader as its CM face. Those in contention for the job could be Deputy CM Nitin Patel, Union minister Purushottam Rupala and state president Jitu Vaghani.

What may go in favour of Nitin Patel are the number of MLAs supporting him. While the first list of 70 candidates released on Friday had 18 Patidar candidates, the list of 36 released yesterday also had many from the community (around 13, some local leaders claim).

While the Congress is still struggling to arrive at consensus on various issues, the BJP has already announced names of 106 candidates for the poll to be held on December 9 and 14. The second list of 36 constituencies includes 14 reserved seats—12 ST and two SC. It is expected that the remaining names may be announced around Tuesday.