In May 2014 Narendra Modi had single-handedly taken on all political bigwigs across the entire national political spectrum, including his own Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and had routed one and all. It was an unthinkable feat from someone who is not a pedigree politician or a surname politician.
Modi had to first eliminate opposition from within BJP. He did that admirably well, smashing the established fortresses of veteran BJP leaders. He turned the tables on all nay-sayers within the party fully and finally in September 2013 when he was declared as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate. After that he turned his attention on the entire opposition, particularly the Congress party.
Modi picked on the mother-son duo of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, tallest leaders of the Congress in contemporary times. He also took on regional satraps opposed to him.
The result of May 2014 general elections was there for the world to see how he decimated the entire opposition.
Exactly 15 months after his astounding political success, Modi came face to face with a threat from a 22-year-old lad whose name no one had heard till then. This young man is Hardik Patel, a non-entity from Modi’s home state of Gujarat. But what Patel did on Aug. 25, no one could do to Modi all this while.
Hardik Patel addressed a mammoth anti-reservation rally in Ahmedabad on Aug. 25, which by a modest count was attended by over half a million people. He touched a sensitive and explosive issue like reservation, which has major impact on politics as well as society. His demand is that the Patels who are socially and politically way ahead of other castes in Gujarat be included in the Other Backwards Castes category.
Anandiben Patel, Modi’s handpicked choice as chief minister of Gujarat, completely misread the Hardik Patel threat and botched up her strategy to deal with the fire-spewing young lad by arresting him. This infuriated the Patels who resorted to violence against the police and the administration at a scale that the state of Gujarat had not witnessed since the 2002 communal riots. At least 10 people died, scores were injured and virtually the entire state was put under curfew.
Thus in a jiffy Modi’s famed and much-quoted “Gujarat model” was blown into smithereens. This was the state that Modi had pitched for hard-selling when he had held a high voltage “Vibrant Gujarat” event in January this year and projected Gujarat as an ideal destination for investments from all parts of the globe.
Hardik Patel thundered at the rally: “In 1985, we uprooted the Congress from Gujarat, today there is BJP. 2017 is coming… Lotus (BJP party symbol) will not bloom in the mud… if you will not talk about our interest, the lotus will not bloom with brilliance.” Here he is talking about anti-reservationists on the whole, not himself as he was not even born in 1985.
For days after his Aug. 25 rally in Ahmedabad, the entire Indian media was talking only of Hardik Patel. Days after he reached New Delhi and vowed to take his anti-reservation stir to all parts of India.
He has claimed to be the leader of the entire Patel population of India, which he has liberally put at a whopping 270 million, claiming that 117 of 543 Lok Sabha seats are occupied by the Patels. His definition of a Patel is rather exaggerated and he has roped in regional satraps like Nitish Kumar of Bihar and Chandrabau Naidu of Andhra Pradesh as Patels.
The impact of Hardik Patel was there for all to see on Sept. 15 when a chastened Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel met him for no less than five hours. But Hardik walked out of the meeting in a rebellious mode and warned her that he would be carrying out a massive march on Sept. 19 and five rallies across the state on the same day to highlight the major concerns of the Patel community.
Hardik Patel is hobnobbing with known Modi-baiters like Keshubhai Patel (former Gujarat chief minister) and Praveen Kumar Togadia (leader of Vishva Hindu Parishad) and is known to be having a soft corner for the likes of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and Nitish Kumar.
This political tussle will be worth watching out for in near future.
