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Gujarat conquered, all roads lead to Delhi: What’s next for CR Patil, PM’s man behind landslide win

Party leaders say Gujarat BJP president's work in state is now done, paving way for him to become 'a minister or get a bigger role in organisation'. Patil says Modi will decide.

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Ahmedabad: The BJP’s record-breaking victory in Gujarat, according to state party leaders, was made possible due to various reasons besides “Modi charisma”, but foremost among them was the efforts of the prime minister’s trusted man — C R Patil.

But while caretaker chief minister Bhupendra Patel is now set for a second term, for Gujarat BJP president Patil, all roads seem to be leading to Delhi.

“Patil saheb’s job is done. Now for the next five years there is nothing to do in Gujarat. C R always loved challenging work. Only work left in Gujarat is winning 26 Lok Sabha seats in 2024. His desire is to now move to Delhi. It’s up to saheb (Modi) to decide his (Patil’s) role, whether to move him now or after the 2024 Lok Sabha election,” a senior BJP leader said to be close to Patil told ThePrint.

Another senior state party leader too said that Patil had proved his mettle as an “organisation man”. 

“He has learnt a lot from saheb and Amit bhai (Shah) and overhauled the organisation through data and technology. In the PM’s eyes, trust in him has grown. Even Amit bhai’s confidence on C R has enhanced after this result. His caste restricts him from becoming CM in Gujarat but nothing stops him from becoming minister or getting a bigger role in the organisation,” the leader added.

In Gujarat, the BJP improved its voteshare by 4 per cent and increased its seat tally to 156 (in the 182-member assembly) from 99 in the 2017 polls despite a lower voting percentage than last time. This was not possible without strong, scientific micro planning of booths and man-to-man marking of voters, said party leaders, crediting the strategy to Patil.

Other contributing factors according to them were Modi’s emotional connect and trust established with Gujarat voters, Union Home Minister Amit Shah micromanagement of booths, BJP’s smart caste strategy of giving tickets to both big and small communities, and absence of social disruption, among others.

While victory celebrations have been in full swing, Patil is sitting in his Gandhinagar residence, busy preparing for the oath-taking ceremony, and analysing possible reasons for why BJP lost in the remaining 26 seats (Congress: 17, AAP: 5, Others: 4).

Speaking to ThePrint, he said: “Many times I said that we will win 150-plus seats but nobody believed it. They thought it was political rhetoric. My belief was based on several strategies and factors, the pant pradhan connect was unmatched, which drove the campaign. Our page committee model to bring voters from home worked on the ground.” 

Asked if he would like to move to Delhi, Patil said: “I have delivered my responsibility. It is up to saheb (Modi) to decide my role.”


Also Read: Gujarat star campaigner no more — BJP’s message to Vasundhara Raje, her supporters in Rajasthan


From page committees to ‘One day, One district’

Seen as Modi’s man in Gujarat, this is not the first time Patil — a three-time Lok Sabha MP from Navsari — has proved his mettle. In 2014, he micro-managed the election campaign of the prime minister’s home constituency Varanasi, then in 2019 he won from the Navsari Lok Sabha seat with a massive margin of 6.89 lakh votes. 

Around the time when the BJP’s internal survey indicated growing fatigue over former CM Vijay Rupani in 2020, Modi made Patil Gujarat BJP chief.

Soon after his appointment, Patil appointed young faces in organisational roles at district level and experimented with the ‘panna’ (page) committee model that had secured him Lok Sabha wins. Now, BJP president J P Nadda has given the party instructions to replicate Patil’s model in every state.

Even his ‘One day, One district’ strategy — a massive outreach programme that involved him meeting everyone from party workers to businessmen, doctors to chartered accountants and religious leaders, to address their grievances and garner their support — has been praised by Modi, who wants it implemented across India.

He told them so

According to senior BJP leader and former home minister Govardhan Jhadapia, Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) ate into the Congress’s voteshare in Gujarat. “AAP has taken away Congress voteshare, reducing it to 27 per cent from 41. There was strong distrust among voters for Congress as they felt cheated due to their non-competence. BJP votes did not get diluted, rather they increased despite low voter turnout. This was the result of micro-management of polls.”

Another minister in the Patel government told ThePrint, “Low voter turnout reflects absence of emotional or pressing urge among voters like that which was felt in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, when Modi was vying for the post of prime minister, or even during the 2019 elections. This time it was not even like it was in 2017 when the Patidars were against BJP. Due to lack of pressing urge, turnout was low but BJP voters reached the booths to vote for the party.”

The leader, not wanting to be named, further said that only C R Patil who was sure that the party would cross the 150-mark. “It was a phenomenal victory. We were expecting 125-130 seats. Only one person was continuously telling the PM that we will cross 150, and that was C R Patil. There was no doubt that we would win but the scale of the victory is the result of Patil’s micro-management. Like Solanki (Madhav Singh Solanki, the former Congress CM whose government which won 149 seats in 1985, a record BJP has now broken), Patil has made his space in history.”

On 8 December, when counting was still underway and CM Bhupendra Patel and Patil arrived at the Gandhinagar party office to congratulate party workers, it was the state party chief who announced that Patel would take oath on 12 December without waiting for the Delhi customary meeting to decide the date.

In the past, examples of Patil’s authority have included announcements made by him regarding key decisions — like the scrapping of the Gujarat Cattle Control (Keeping and Moving) in Urban Areas Bill and of the Pari-Tapi-Narmada river inter-linking project being shelved. Both announcements were made by Patil even before the CM, after the former speaking to the Delhi top brass.

Patil’s clout has been seen in other instances as well, be it in him appointing one of his most trusted lieutenants, the young Harsh Sanghavi, as Gujarat home minister, or in Rupani’s removal as chief minister amid lack of synergy between the two.

(Edited by Gitanjali Das)


Also Read: As AAP threat looms, Gujarat BJP plans to use ‘aides’ of potential rebels to help prevent revolt


 

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