Lok Sabha elections 2009:Gujarat Poll Bytes(7)

BJP’s Ahmedabad rally, not so impressive

BJP’s Ahmedabad rally at Football ground was not as massive and impressive as it could be. Almost 30 percent of the total space in the ground remained unoccupied till the end of the rally. Local media had created hype on extra ordinary security arrangements in this rally. But on ground, security arrangements were below ordinary. There was no tempo, no charm in the rally even though Narendra Modi, LK Advani and 24 other BJP Lok Sabha candidates from all over the Gujarat were present on stage. According to party tradition, Advanai’s speech should be at last but he spoke before Modi. In recent years, it has been experienced that people leave a rally after Modi’s speech. Perhaps to prevent such possible embarrassing situation, Advani’s speech was held before Modi’s.

Interestingly when Modi’s speech was going on, people were leaving the ground. In total around 100 people stood up and started leaving the ground from differnt corners of the ground one by one when Modi was talking on terrorism and Bangladeshi intrusion. Looking at this, Modi shortened his speech. Usually Modi talks for around 40 minutes in such election rallies but here Modi’s speech ended up in less than 20 minutes!

Actually, rally’s official time was 5:30 pm but Advani and Modi arrived at 7:30 and therefore people who had arrived on time were thursty and tired sitting in the ground. Such people started leaving earlier therefore.

My friend who is a TV journalist blamed live telecast of this rally on couple of Gujarati tv channels for less crowd. Other friend said that party workers, unhappy due to unknown candidates chosen by the party were responsible for poor show. Such workers don’t loud their voice but silently express their protest by not performing enough. Some journalists believed that this was a sabotage because not only the crowd was unimpressive but sound system also was faulty. Many who were sitting on the backside of the ground just couldn’t listen the speeches clearly.

BJP’s micro planning, “Parivar Incharge” to ensure positive votes

To ensure maximum positive voting, the BJP in Gujarat has come out with a unique micro management plan this election. The party has created ‘Parivar(family) Incharge’ cadre at the bottom level. Each ‘Parivar Incharge’ would look after five to seven families or 50 people in his/her locality. ‘Parivar Incharge’ would visit the families in his area five to seven times before the election to create a relation with them. ‘Parivar Incharge’ would judge possible voting trend of families under him and submit a report to booth in charge. The party has organized it’s election team in each Lok Sabha constituency in following manner top to bottom: Lok Sabha constituency incharge-Vidhansabha incharge, Zone incharge, Municipal ward incharge, Booth incharge and Family in charge.

Gujarat’s Babu log on India tour

The Election Commission of India has ordered Gujarat’s 58 senior IAS officers to serve as election observers in different states for around a month and a half. Gujarat has total 240 IAS

officers. Some of the major Gujarat IAS officers on election duty are, S Murli Krishna(Kalahandi, Orissa), BN Leuva(Oligar,Orissa), PR Mehta(Nagaland), Arvind Agrawal(Tura, Meghalaya), GM Damor(Parbhani, Maharashtra), Vipul Mitra( Nagpur, Maharashtra), RK Pathak(Amravati, Maharashtra), PL Darbar(Vadakara, Kerala), PK Gadhvi(Sataram, Bihar), PP Harshe(Bongir, Andhra Pradesh), HKN Chiber(Bongir, Andhra Pradesh), Vinay Vyasa(Kakulam, Andhra Pradesh), RR Chauhan(Karimnagar, Andhra Pradesh), Bhagyesh Jha(Jaipur, Rajasthan), PK Parmar(Mumbai, Maharashtra), K Shrinivas(Assam), Pankaj Joshi(Assam), Mukesh Kumar(Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh), Raj Gopal(Chittorgarh), DJ Pandian(Ajmer, Rajasthan).

“Join BJP” movement continues to become stronger day by day

Dalpatsinh Vasava, who was recently appointed as general secretary of the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) has joined the BJP. Virendrasinh Gohil, who was Bharuch

Congress president has also joined the BJP. Both have joined the party with 15o Congress workers. Vasava was unhappy with Congress party because even though the Bharuch seat has 41 percent tribal population, the Congress party nominated a Muslim Aziz Tankarvi.

Vasava had contested the state Assembly elections twice from the Jhagadia constituency in Bharuch district in 1998 and 2002. He is the son-in-law of Somji Damor, who is BJP’s Dahod candidate.

In another development, ex-Additional Director General of Police, Gujarat state Shri A.I.Saiyad has joined the BJP. Patan district Congress General Secretary Kasam Ali Saiyad has also joined the BJP.

Mayavati to visit Gujarat, but she won’t get even a single seat here

Mayavati is coming to Ahmedabad to address a rally at Football ground on March 31st. BSP is going to fight all 26 seats in Gujarat. BSP has been fighting elections in Gujarat since 1999, but has failed to win a single seat till now. In 1999, it contested Rajkot, Sabarkantha, Vadodara and Surat constituencies, while in 2004 it had fielded candidates in 20 seats.

Two days ahead of the rally of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati in the state, the Gujarat unit of the party on Sunday announced names of 18 candidates who will contest various seats in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.

The list includes Pravin Solanki and Mohan Namori from the reserved seats (for SC) of Ahmedabad-West and Kutch, respectively. The four candidates for the reserved Scheduled Tribe seats include Ramsingh Kalara from Dahod, Prakash Bhil from Chhota Udepur, Ranjana Gamit from Bardoli and Chagan Patel from Valsad.

Other candidates are Suresh Mali from Banaskantha, Mahboob Khokhar from Patan, Rudratsingh Jhala from Mehsana, Vikramsingh Ramalavat from Sabarkantha, Bhavesh Bhatt from Ahmedabad-East, Dalichand Patel from Rajkot, Mehul Chandrawadia from Porbandar, Usha Patel from Amreli, Mukesh Patel from Anand, Ratansingh Chauhan from Kheda, Prakash Barot from Panchmahals and Samarnath Singh from Navsari.

The BSP will not be able to win even a single seat in Gujarat in this election but it will impact somebody’s winning chance on some seat.

Jubaan pe Lagaam! No way…

Congress candidate for Bardoli seat Tushar Chaudhari recently in his one of the election speeches told the people that they should bet on Congress in this recession time to earn some money. It seemed like Tushar Chaudhari was encouraging people to bet their money. In another incident, BJP’s Navsari candidate C.R.Patil in a public meeting said that he would do right and wrong, all kinds of work for the people after being elected. In Lunavada, BJP’s MLA from Rajgadh, Fatesinh Chauhan while addressing a party meeting said that Sonia Gandhi is dog, monkey and mad. Fatehsingh was campaigning for BJP’s Godhra candidate Prabhatsinh Chauhan.

Jaitley’s no comment on Varun was itself a comment

While BJP office bearers in Delhi were defending Varun Gandhi as charges on him were yet not proved, Arun Jaitley in Ahmedabad refused to give his opinion on Varun Gandhi issue siting a reason that the case was in court. Now if the case was in court, how come other party leaders freely talked on the issue? It seemed that Jaitley was not happy with Varun episode. Mr. Jaitley was in Ahmedabad for “Friends of BJP” function.