THE STATES

A rough ride ahead

Haunted by the long shadows of the communal pogrom, dogged by faction feuds within and confronted by a rejuvenated Congress(I) under Shankarsinh Vaghela, the BJP in Gujarat is on edge as it awaits the Election Commission's decision on the holding of Assembly elections as demanded by it.

DIONNE BUNSHA
in Ahmedabad

A CONSPIRACY of silence is being broken in Gujarat. For the first time, the growing discord in the Bharatiya Janata Party's State leadership became public when Minister of State for Revenue Haren Pandya resigned from the Cabinet on August 6. As the BJP is preparing the ground for Assembly elections in the State, factionalism is tearing apart what is supposed to be a 'disciplined' party.

SIDDHARTH DARSHAN KUMAR/AP
At Prantij village in Ahmedabad on July 29, after a bout of communal violence.

Pandya has reportedly been at loggerheads with Chief Minister Narendra Modi for the past few months. He disagreed with Modi's decisions, including the way he handled the post-Godhra violence, and his style of functioning. However, Pandya is not alone in his dislike for Modi. Several top BJP leaders, including State Industries Minister Suresh Mehta, Union Textiles Minister Kashiram Rana, State BJP president Rajendrasinh Rana, general secretary Nalin Bhatt and vice-president Suresh Gandhi, have reportedly locked horns with Modi. But Pandya is the first to speak out.

The mud-slinging between Modi and Pandya reached its messy worst on August 4 when party president Rajendrasinh Rana issued a show-cause notice, which was also made public, to Pandya asking him to explain why he deposed before a Citizens' Tribunal on the violence. A Minister, whose identity was not disclosed, reportedly told the Tribunal that on the night of February 27 (the day of the Sabarmati Express massacre at Godhra), Modi convened a high-level meeting and instructed top police officers not to obstruct "the Hindu backlash". Modi also allegedly told the officers that there would be "justice for Godhra" during the bandh called by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on February 28. Pandya, who went public with his reply to the show-cause notice, denied making any such deposition. Without mentioning Modi, he said: "I think that the person who pressured you to go to the media in seeking my explanation is working against the interests of the BJP." Pandya asked Rana not to "become a victim of someone else's ego". Submitting his resignation, Pandya said: "I don't want the party to suffer because of one person's whims."

The battle lines seem to be drawn in the party. Pandya is a supporter of former Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel. Keshubhai Patel, who was upset at the manner in which Modi usurped the Chief Minister's post, still has the backing of several senior BJP leaders in Gujarat. He also commands a strong base among the powerful Patel community in Saurashtra, who form the bulk of the BJP's vote-bank. His cooperation is crucial to the BJP's election campaign. In Saurashtra, the BJP holds 51 Assembly seats (out of a total 57 in the region). However, Keshubhai Patel shows no sign of helping Modi. He turned down the presidentship of the party's State unit when it was offered to him by the party high command.

Keshubhai Patel and Modi were both summoned to Delhi by a jittery BJP high command as it feared more trouble in the party following Pandya's resignation. The BJP also revived its plans to start the Gujarat Gaurav Yatra in August. The yatra plan was shelved in July when the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said that the situation in Gujarat was not right to hold elections. The yatra will be an elaborate cavalcade of buses led by Modi and other top BJP leaders and will travel for three days each week through the State. "The yatra will highlight the pride of Gujarat. It will counter the bad propaganda that the Congress is giving the State," said Rajendrasinh Rana. Explaining its timing, he said: "War has been declared. As soon as the Election Commission declares election dates, we will start the war." The yatra also seems to be an attempt to bring dissenting elements back into the party fold.

WHILE Pandya articulates the unrest within the top ranks of Gujarat's Sangh Parivar, local workers of the Bajrang Dal and VHP continue to enforce a conspiracy of silence. In Kariadra village in Sabarkantha district, no one is allowed to talk to the members of the 40-odd Muslim families of the village. They have imposed a boycott of Muslims and buying or selling anything to them is prohibited. These VHP and Bajrang Dal activists belong mainly to the Patel community. "Anyone who dares to speak to us is terrorised and threatened with a fine of Rs.500. We have to travel 14 km to buy our food and provisions. I can't even reopen my shop elsewhere. No one is willing to rent a shop to me," says Noor Mohammad Mansoori, a resident of the village. In such a hostile environment, it is unlikely that people like Mansoori will be able to cast their votes freely, if elections are held soon.

Chief Election Commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh in the Naroda Patiya area in Ahmedabad on August 9.

Besides Mansoori, there are many others who have not even made their way home. Voluntary organisations estimate that there are around 20,000 refugees still in relief camps. But the government insists that the number is less than 13,000. It refuses to acknowledge that any camps exist in rural areas. It shut down several camps and stopped supplies to others. Some camps are still running on private donations. Teesta Setalvad, editor of Communalism Combat, said: "Nearly 25,000 of the over 66,000 people [official figures] who had sought refuge within Ahmedabad city and a majority of the 21,000-odd refugees [official figures] from other parts of Gujarat have been coerced into leaving the camps, with no guarantee of security. In over 70 per cent of the cases, basic rehabilitation costs have also been denied, with cheques for meagre amounts being disbursed." She added: "'Under such circumstances, with no comprehensive official data on rehabilitation efforts and with one crore Gujarati voters yet to receive voter identification documents, what is the guarantee that the electoral rolls under a blatantly partisan government will be fairly updated reflecting the brutal reality of the situation?"

Two weeks after Modi dissolved the Assembly on July 17, the E.C. sent a nine-member team led by Deputy Election Commissioners A.N. Jha and S. Mendiratta on a five-day visit to the State. The team was to review the situation and assess whether the State was ready for free and fair elections. The team visited relief camps and spoke to representatives of several voluntary and human rights organisations who wanted the elections to be delayed.

The E.C. team was flooded with petitions from citizens' groups. They all countered the State government's claim that the situation had returned to "normal". It was pointed out that thousands of people were still displaced and stray incidents of violence continued to occur. A few days before the team's visit, on July 30, communal violence broke out at Prantij and Khed Brahma in Sabarkantha district. Prior to that there was violence at Virmgam in Ahmedabad district and at Chhota Udaipur and Savli in Vadodara district. Even before the announcement of the elections, the names of many people are missing from voters' lists. In Vadodara city, names of around 10,000 to 12,000 voters were missing from the electoral lists during the February by-election. The same people said that they had voted in the 1999 Lok Sabha elections. After the team submitted its report to the E.C. on August 8, Chief Election Commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh and the two Election Commissioners left for the State to assess the situation.

The BJP, both in the State and the Centre, seems to be under scrutiny. While the E.C. conducted a field study of the situation in Gujarat, NHRC Chairperson Justice J.S. Verma criticised Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for his passive response to the Gujarat massacres and asked him to translate his "rhetoric on religious intolerance into action". Speaking in Bangalore on August 4, Verma equated the violence in Gujarat to a war.

While the Gujarat BJP was busy fighting within the ranks, the new Congress(I) State unit president Shankarsinh Vaghela launched his election campaign from Deesa in Sabarkantha district on August 4. A former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) pracharak and Modi's colleague in the BJP, Vaghela rebelled against the party in 1998 when Keshubhai Patel was made Chief Minister. At the meeting in Deesa, Vaghela played on the peoples' discontent with government policies on several fronts - unemployment, the water crisis and the agricultural challenge. Referring to farmers' anger against the plans to bill them according to a metering system rather than a flat monthly rate system, Vaghela said: "Remove the BJP and we will remove the meters from your farms." He also drew attention to the government's dismal record in alleviating the water crisis, generating employment and curbing steep price rises. By focussing on survival issues, the Congress(I) brought the limelight back to the real problems faced by the people. It was a clever strategy at a time when the BJP was trying to divert attention away from such issues by playing the communal card. Vaghela also pointed out that in its hurry to hold elections, the BJP was not declaring Gujarat a drought-hit State.

The coming elections may not be as smooth a ride for him as Modi had hoped it to be. He is being challenged in his own party and the Opposition is not allowing him to divert attention from the BJP government's failures in the past five years. At least some are finally voicing the underlying discontent in Gujarat. In time, maybe the silence can be broken in villages like Kariadra where Muslims still live under the Bajrang Dal's enforced boycott - unable to speak to their neighbours.