Gujarat has long been a cradle of the RSS and a BJP stronghold. In the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the party is also targeting retaining all 26 seats in the state, most of them with a huge majority.
While the BJP looks all set to come out with flying colors, the opposition has tried to gain some leverage over an incident that happened a few days ago.
Rajkot, which is considered to be the BJP's loyal vote bank, has Minister for State Purshottam Rupala as its BJP candidate. Rupala belongs to the majority Patidar community.
In one of the unscheduled meetings before a few days, Rupala had stopped by at one of the Bhajan events. During his small speech at the event, he appreciated the Rukhi people, belonging to the scheduled caste, sitting in the audience.
The one-liner remark on ancient rulers during the speech created dissatisfaction among Kshatriyas when they learned about it. The Kshatriyas also got support from other parties, and the dissatisfaction has taken a huge shape within the Kshatriya community over the last few days.
Protests by Kshatriya
While Kshatriyas are also divided over their opinions, there is a large group of people in the community who have shown dissatisfaction and are participating in anti-Rupala protests.
Kshatriya has tried to build up pressure by taking the protest to different parts of Gujarat. There have been large gatherings on various occasions.
In fact, there are some areas where they have put up banners saying that BJP workers should not come until Rupala’s candidature is replaced.
As a part of the protest, Kshatriya women have picked up 150 candidature forms from the Rajkot collector office. They are already targeting 400 forms, which will be used by Kshatriya women to file their nominations as independent candidates. Thereby trying to confuse some voters and eating into the vote bank of the BJP.
The actual incident
Rupala had remarked while appreciating the Rukhi people that during the pre-independence era, the rulers were into Roti-Beti with the Britishers. This roughly means that rulers used to wed their daughters with Britishers to maintain relations with them.
According to Kshatriya, this puts the bravery of all Kshatriya rulers in a spot, especially those who gave away their kingdoms for the creation of the union of independent India.
Also, the Kshatriya protestors clearly mention that they do not have anything to do with Prime Minister Modi or the Bhartiya Janata Party. Their problem is only with Purshottam Rupala, and their demand is to change the candidate for Rajkot.
Public apology
In fact, Purshottam Rupala has publicly apologized to the Kshatriya four times already. Gujarat’s rulers, like those of Jamnagar and Rajkot, have already announced publicly that since Rupala has already apologized, it is the duty of the Kshatriya community to forgive.
The Rajkot contest
Meanwhile, the Rajkot Congress has given candidature to Rupala’s long-term rival, Amreli Paresh Dhanani. While Dhanani also belongs to the Patidar community, it is important to note that he belongs to the sub-sect Leuva Patidar as compared to Rupala, who belongs to the Kadva sub-sect.
Leuvas have a much larger population than Kadva in Gujarat and Rajkot and are traditionally voters for candidates of their own community, irrespective of the political party.
Congress is also expected to get support from a large section of the Muslim community. So the battle for Rajkot is expected to be a contest of Kshatriya, Leuva, and Muslims versus all others.
Current situation
Some support for Kshatriya is suspected from the BJP's own leaders who are dissatisfied due to not getting tickets or those who feel insecure due to the migration of Congress leaders into the BJP in their region.
The BJP cadre, however, feels all will be well in the run-up to the elections. Especially after Modi addresses political meetings in the state and other stars Pracharaks reach out to citizens.
In the meantime, Kathi Kshatriya, an important sect of the Kshatriya community, has come out in public and declared their full support for Modi and the BJP.
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