By Japan K Pathak

After a huge victory in by-polls of all 8 assembly seats in the latter part of 2020, the more confident BJP further shined in local polls in the year 2021. The shadow of victories in these local elections still persists, thanks to which BJP is believed unbeatable in upcoming State assembly polls.

In local polls of 2021, BJP captured all 31 district panchayats, 75 of the 81 municipalities, and over 200 of the 231 taluka panchayats, apart from victories in all Municipal Corporations that went to elections. The party won 6236 of 8470 seats that went to elections in district panchayat, taluka panchayat, and municipality elections. The party thus secured its win over nearly 75 percent of seats. The party won all six Municipal Corporations of Gujarat that went to polls as well, with even more seats than past. If we compare the results of 2015 and 2021 municipal corporation polls, BJP in Ahmedabad lifted its seat tally from 143 to 159, in Vadodara 57 to 69, in Surat 79 to 93, in Rajkot 38 to 68, in Bhavnagar 34 to 44 and in Jamnagar 38 to 50. The party won 85% of municipal corporation seats.

The main opposition Congress party was not able to win even a single district panchayat. Congress was able to win only two municipalities, thanks to dominating Muslim voters there.

The ruling BJP added one more achievement in the series of big wins that started with victory on all 26 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, proceeded further with the victory on all 8 vacant assembly seats that went for by-polls the previous year, and win of two extra number of Rajya Sabha seats in one year.

In the latter part of 2021, municipality elections were also held for Okha, Thara, and Bhanvad municipalities while a municipal corporation election was held for Gandhinagar. While BJP won Okha and Thara municipalities, Congress won the Bhanvad municipality election, thanks to a lack of support in some Muslims populated wards. BJP also won Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation (GMC) election for the first time on its own with never-before results due to division in opposition votes. A municipality election for Vapi was also held in this period and BJP won that too.

The results of the local polls clearly displayed that BJP completely left behind the year 2015 quota agitation and the worst-ever performance of the year 2017 polls. In this reference, some details of the year 2015 local polls are worth mentioning. The last local polls were held in 2015 during the quota agitations and Congress had witnessed unprecedented gains. Agitating Patidars had given the “defeat BJP” call. Irrigation and Minimum Support Price for farm produce were also the issues that contributed to BJP’s defeat. While BJP retained all six municipal corporations and won 42 of 56 municipalities, Congress wrested 23 of 31 district panchayats and won 24. Congress also wrested 113 of 193 taluka panchayats. So while Congress dominated rural results, BJP continued to perform well in urban areas. In fact, Congress had got about 52% votes against BJP’s 44% in a huge swing from the 59.1% vote share of BJP in the May 2014 elections when it won all 26 Lok Sabha seats.

Now compared to this, in 2021 local polls, the BJP won urban areas in a better way and got 52.90% vote share in municipal corporation elections against 50.28% in 2015. But the better news for BJP was in rural areas. In 2015 BJP had got 45.55% vote share in district panchayat polls while in 2021 it was 52.88%. In Taluka, Panchayat BJP increased its vote share from 44.49% in 2015 to 51.20% in 2021. Thus BJP improved its situation in urban areas and very much improved its situation in rural areas.

In the year 2021 local polls as many as 2.5 crore voters were eligible to vote in the second phase (Municipalities and Panchayat polls), while over 1 crore voters were eligible to vote in the first phase (Municipal Corporation). Thus this was the election season involving 3.5 crore voters and therefore it was a good sample size, indicating political support. Prannoy Roy and Dorab Sopariwala in their book ‘Verdict’ point out that the results of local body polls are indicating for the next assembly poll within two years bracket. This is true. We can link the year 2015 local polls results with the year 2017 assembly election. Similarly, we may match the year 2021 local polls results with the 2022 assembly election result and it seems very much likely as per the related political atmosphere that has not changed much. More in the next episode. DeshGujarat