Amid brewing Kshatriya discontent, old rivals Rupala, Dhanani to clash in Rajkot
Rajkot will witness a clash of old rivals after a gap of 21 years when all Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat — barring Surat, where the BJP nominee has won unopposed — go to polls in the third phase on May 7.
The BJP has elded Union Minister Parshottam Rupala against Paresh Dhanani of the Congress. Both candidates are native to Amreli district but are new faces in Rajkot. Mr. Dhanani is taking on Mr. Rupala after defeating him by a margin of over two lakh votes from the Amreli seat in the 2002 Assembly poll.
“Since then, Mr. Rupala has somewhat taken a back seat in contesting elections. After his loss, he was appointed the State BJP chief and later nominated as a Rajya Sabha MP,” Mr. Dhanani told The Hindu.
Though the Congress leader lost the Amreli seat in 2007 to the BJP’s Dilip Sanghani, he contested again against Mr. Sanghani and won in 2012. He went on to retain the seat till 2022. “I have contested the Assembly elections ve times, won thrice, and lost twice. I also contested the 2019 Lok Sabha and lost to the BJP,” Mr. Dhanani said.
While the BJP is playing the infrastructure development card to woo the business community in Rajkot, Mr. Rupala has irked the Kshatriyas in Gujarat by making allegedly derogatory remarks against the community while interacting with members of a Dalit community recently.
Voter outreach
Since the vote share of the Kshatriyas is limited in the seat, which has 22 lakh voters, their dissent is unlikely to dent the BJP’s prospects. Yet, to avoid defeat, Mr. Rupala has been actively campaigning in the constituency to reach out to communities such as the Brahm Kshatriyas, Darzis, and Mochis.
According to Mr. Dhanani, the battle is not over becoming an MP but protecting constitutional rights. “There is in¥ation, slump in trade, and unemployment, but to make people forget these core issues, they [BJP] divide people on religious and caste lines during every election. In a State that gave birth to Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, today those who have stepped on the Constitution are destroying the country’s unity in diversity with their arrogance of power.”