Modi launches welfare schemes in Gujarat

By Our Special Correspondent

Narendra Modi Prime Minister of India has embarked on a number of development projects in his home state in the run-up to the elections later this year. He will visit Vadodara on June 18 to inaugurate and lay the foundation stone for various projects worth Rs 21,000 crore.

Vadodara Gujarat is a comfort zone for the BJP. Modi chose Vadodara in 2014 for his Lok Sabha elections. The party governs all local bodies in the city. The BJP won a total of seven seats in the Vadodara Lok Sabha constituency in the 2017 Assembly elections.

Central Gujarat consists of Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Anand, Kheda, Dahod, Panchmahal and Chhota Udaipur districts and sends 61 MLAs to the Assembly. Tribal communities, OBCs and partisans dominate the area. If there are any indications of trends, Congress will generally win in tribal-dominated areas, while BJP will win in areas where OBC and Patidar are dominant. However, conditions may be very different in the 2022 election.

Central Gujarat has a dozen reserved seats for the highest number of tribal’s. Vadodara City position is reserved for Dalits. Amit Dholakia, head of political science at MS University, said caste-based politics were weakening in Gujarat, especially in central Gujarat, after Modi's rise.

The results of the last two polls, which were once considered a bastion of the Congress, show that the BJP has won in all the Congress constituencies. Dholakia said the way Modi was campaigning in central Gujarat was likely to wipe out the Congress.

"The BJP will not face any challenge in central Gujarat. The Opposition is inactive and the Congress lacks effective leadership. At the moment, the big picture looks very favorable to the BJP,” Dholakia said.