- Monday, June 17, 2024
Ramesh Nabhani told India Weekly that the Hindu nationalist BJP would lose eight to nine seats in the 2024 parliamentary elections.
By: India Weekly
THE AAM Aadmi Party (AAP) is a key party in India’s opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc. One of those few regional parties which is in power in more than one state (Delhi and Punjab), the AAP has been in the news of late over the arrests of a number of its top leaders, including convener and the chief minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal, in connection with a liquor policy scam.
He was recently given an interim bill by the Supreme Court of India for three weeks during which he engaged in full-fledged campaigning for his party for the ongoing general elections, aiming to prevent the Bharatiya Janata Party of prime minister Narendra Modi from coming to power for the third successive term.
India Weekly recently spoke with Rameshbhai Nabhani, a leader of the party in the western state of Gujarat where the AAP has made an alliance with the Indian National Congress and contested the polls from two prestigious seats — Bhavnagar and Bharuch, about the party’s prospects in the state where the Hindu nationalist has dominated both national and local elections for the past many decades.
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When he was asked whether the AAP could have contested from more seats in Gujarat instead of just two, Nabhani said it his party is contesting this election with honesty and all stakeholders of the INDIA bloc had decided on how many seats the AAP would contest in Gujarat, Delhi and Punjab (where both AAP and Congress are contesting separately).
“The states where AAP has formed a government and where the probability of winning is more, it was communicated to Congress and it accepted that. In Gujarat, Arvind ji (Kejriwal) felt it would be okay to fight in two seats,” Nabhani told India Weekly, adding that he is confident that his party members are putting in a lot of hard work and will help it win from there.
Read: ‘Here I am,’ says Modi critic Arvind Kejriwal after coming out of jail amid national polls
If it wins, it will be the first time that the AAP will make its parliamentary debut from Gujarat, which is also the home state of Modi. Reports, however, said that the Congress was facing discontent among its supporters over the ‘loss’ of the two prestigious seats to the AAP. Both those seats have remained BJP strongholds for more than three decades.
When Nabhani was asked whether the Congress-AAP alliance can challenge Modi’s BJP in Gujarat, which it has dominated over the decades, he said the things that the prime minister talked about during the 2014 and 2019 general elections have not been as effective in 2024 and hence there is a high chance of the BJP losing a chunk of its seats in the state this time (BJP won all 26 parliamentary seats in Gujarat in both 2014 and 2019).
“I could see and sense that while working on the ground. In Gujarat, the BJP will lose nearly eight-nine seats and they will face it because of their overconfidence. The kind of popular support that Modi had enjoyed in the 2014 and 2019 elections, does not exist this time. He is trying to show himself to be strong but actually he is not. His lies will not be effective anymore. The promises he made in 2014 and 2019 have not been realised. This will be reflected in the results in not just Gujarat but also in other states. If BJP loses eight-nine seats in Gujarat, you can imagine what will happen elsewhere,” he told the news outlet.
Nabhani, who had contested on the AAP’s ticket in the 2022 state elections in Gujarat from Palanpur constituency but finished third after the BJP and Congress, predicted that the Hindu nationalist party will not be able to win more than 250 seats in the current general elections, much less than the 400-plus claim it has been making. He said besides Gujarat, results in the neighbouring state of Rajasthan will also be contrary to what is being predicted.
Since this interview was taken before Kejriwal got the interim bail, India Weekly asked Nabhani whether the absence of the top leader would hurt his party’s prospects in this election.
He said there would be no effect in the absence of Kejriwal, the party’s leaders and members were working overtime on the ground to keep the campaign energetic. Nabhani added that Kejriwal’s presence would have definitely given the campaign a better boost but the workers of the AAP have remained united despite the challenges and the huge turnout at its rallies and meetings in Delhi or Gujarat is an evidence.
Speaking about the prospects of the INDIA bloc in Palanpur, where he had contested in 2022 and which comes under the Banaskantha parliamentary constituency, Nabhani said the bloc might witness some losses in Palanpur city but could do well in the rural areas saying it has a good presence there.
“The BJP candidate from the Banaskantha parliamentary constituency is from the Chaudhary community, Dr Rekhaben Chaudhary, a doctorate scholar, but her area is under Patan lok sabha. Also, she has no experience and not a lot of people in the region are familiar with her. So, considering everything, the BJP will most probably lose this seat,” Nabhani told India Weekly.
One of the AAP’s major blows came in Gujarat this election season in the exit of two of its leaders from the key Patidar community — Alpesh Kathiriya and Dharmik Malaviya — ahead of the polls. Would that affect the AAP’s chances?
Nabhani didn’t feel it would make a big difference.
“Defection happiness in every party — someone enters, someone exits. Twenty per cent people keep entering and exiting the party. Many people have left AAP, as have from the Congress and BJP. But, the people working at the ground level will keep on working. Their leaving will not have any major impact on the party. The followers of AAP are still intact as is the vote bank of the Congress. The 13 per cent vote share won by AAP (in the 2022 Gujarat election) is not going anywhere,” he said.
Nabhani added that when it comes to the Patidar community, the likes of Gopal Italia and Manoj Sorathiya were still working for the party with high dedication and hence the exit of Kaithiriya and Malaviya would not mean the AAP has lost the Patidars’ favour.
Gujarat was witness to an unprecedented incident this general election as the BJP was announced winner in the seat of Surat after the candidate fielded by the Congress, Nilesh Kumbhani, was disqualified by the poll authorities over alleged discrepancies regarding signatures of the proposers. Speaking about that incident, the AAP leader said people like Kumbhani did not matter or deter their spirit.
Hoping that the AAP might win 12-13 parliamentary seats in the general elections this year, Nabhani said the BJP targeted Kejriwal to hide the electoral bond scam and the arrest was made just for election period. “Even countries like Germany said it was wrong and the people of India are well aware of the injustice being done. We are confident that the results on June 4 will make everything clear. Janta ne jail ka jawab vote se diya hai, ye pata chal jayega. (it will be proved that the people have answered the jailing of kejriwal with their votes)”
