Gandhinagar will witness its first Municipal Corporation poll on 19th. Campaign for this poll will end on 17th evening.

Overall the campaign has been dry and non-happening. Gandhinagar anyway is an artificial dry city(actually a town) mostly consisting government employees who work in government offices.

As this is a vergin election, nobody is sure to predict who will win, or who will loose. Past records of assembly and Lok sabha elections show tight rope situation. However it must be noted that local sitting MLA is from BJP and local MP too is from BJP.

Most of the analysts believe that judging the result in this election is difficult, because Gandhinagar is a typical town where people from various backgrounds stay due to their government job. There’s nothing such like a local flavour.

DeshGujarat contacted one former IAS officer to inquire about the trend. He replied, “BJP will surely win. Gandhinagar is not about only government officers and employees anymore. The city has attracted people other than Government employees in past years. Like any other urban area, here too BJP will win. Suppose if one government employee is not happy with the government’s style of functiong, but wife and children of that employee will still vote for the BJP. Corruption scams of UPA will also affect the chances of BJP’s victory.”

DeshGujarat contacted one senior journalist covering Gandhinagar beat for leading newspaper of the state. He said,”Gandhinagar is dominated by government employees, and they are the people who watch functioning of the state government from nearest distance. If they are the dominating voters, then their decision would be important. It is well known fact that the government employees are not happy with the government. In fact they are never happy with any government. And therefore their votes will go to Congress.”

DeshGujarat approached another Gandhinagar based senior journalist who also lives there. He said, “At present the picture is 60:40 – 60 for Congress and 40 for BJP. Congress party has selected strong candidates. Congress is going to mimic BJP’s booth strategy. While BJP’s slogan is ‘one booth – ten youth’, the Congress party is going to deploy 40 party workers at every booth. Congress has selected strong persons to look into the affairs of every booth. Barring one government employees union led by Yogen Sevak, there’s no other employees union happy with the present government. BJP didn’t give ticket to Pravin Quality(Pravin Patel) who is party worker for last 35 years. Modi government has banned heavy vehicles traffic on ‘J’ road, and ordered that such vehicles will have to pass through busy ‘Kh’ road. This has sparked protest which is affecting party’s chances in as many as eight seats. If situation doesn’t change in next four-five crucial days, then it is sure that BJP will have to satisfy with 13-14 seats while Congress 17-18.”

It should be mentioned that BJP has made Shri I.K.Jadeja in-charge of Gandhinagar election. Jadeja had lost assembly election in 2007. He was last year appointed as Swarnim Gujarat celebration committee’s head with cabinet minister status. His term is going to end this month. Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation’s victory can elevate him and he could be party’s next choice for Rajya Sabha election in July. Radhanpur MLA Shankar Chaudhary has been placed to help Jadeja in Gandhiangar election.

Interaction with common people by DeshGujarat makes an impression that those unhappy with BJP are not motivated enough to go and vote against it. However those supporting BJP are enthusiastic and will go to vote without failure. BJP has placed its corporators, MLAs, ministers in Gandhinagar to win this election. BJP has booth wise past records and therefore micro management measures are taken with utmost care. On the other side, Arjun Modhwadia wants to take credit of winning this election at any cost. He wants to make his mark by winning this not-so-difficult-to-win election. He has been successful so far to mobilize state party workers.

The election is on 19th.