Modi stays afloat in Gujarat, but the tide may be turning
The Modi juggernaut rolls on though there could be bumps ahead as the opposition gives him a run for his money despite a divisive campaign by the prime minister
Gujarat is Modi’s bastion. He made his reputation there as a charismatic chief minister with administrative skills and remains its favourite son, the most popular leader to emerge from the region in the past five decades.
But it is also where he earned international notoriety in 2002 over accusations that his administration did not do enough to protect Muslims during bloody sectarian riots. Though many countries (including the United States) refused Modi a visa after those riots, his popularity within his own party soared, and in 2014 he led the BJP to the biggest national electoral victory since 1984.
So, when elections for the state assembly in Gujarat were announced, the polls were seen as a walkover. Not only were the people of Gujarat excited that one of their own had become prime minister, but Modi’s BJP had just won a landslide victory in the major state of Uttar Pradesh. So high were the BJP’s confidence levels that its party president Amit Shah (a key Modi confidant from his Gujarat days) declared that the BJP would win 150 of Gujarat’s 182 seats.
