After quota for Muslims and Marathas, Congress woos Gujaratis in Maharashtra

An increasingly clueless Congress in Maharashtra appears to be trying just about anything that can pass for strategy as it prepares for a critical Assembly election in less than four months. With the reservation for Muslims and Marathas not appearing to be as much a winner as the party would have liked, the Congress-NCP government has now decided to woo Gujaratis.

Earlier this week, the state government announced that it would publish its monthly official magazine, Lok Rajya, in Gujarati language too. The magazine is currently available only in Marathi.

The decision was taken by Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan following a request by Krishna Hegde, Congress legislator from Vile Parle, one of Mumbai’s many Gujarat-dominated suburbs. Lok Rajya is a monthly magazine that provides information on various government schemes and latest initiatives. Chavan heads the state government’s publicity department which publishes the magazine.

“I was pursuing the matter with the Chief Minister for a long time. I had written to him three times on the issue. The Gujarati edition of the magazine was discontinued in the 1990s when the Shiv Sena-BJP combine was in power in the state. The decision will help the government as the Gujaratis, a dominant business community in the state, will get to know the schemes and initiatives launched by the government,” Hegde said.

While the Gujaratis have traditionally backed the BJP, the Shiv Sena has also taken efforts to attract the community’s respect, especially after the Lok Sabha elections. The Shiv Sena had launched a door-to-door campaign to show its gratitude to the community in the light of the party’s impressive performance in the Lok Sabha polls. This was after a Saamna editorial questioned the community’s loyalty to the state of Maharashtra – a worried Uddhav Thackeray had to clarify that the editorial was not an accurate representation of the party’s view towards Gujaratis.

The Gujaratis in Mumbai have always been considered a major influence in business and trade circles. They are now also being seen as an important voting bloc given their role in the victory of not only BJP candidates this Lok Sabha election but also Shiv Sena candidates, as hordes of residents in Gujarati-dominated areas voted en mass for Shiv Sena candidates, riding on the Modi wave. The defeat of former Mumbai MPs Milind Deora is a case in point. It is, needless to say, widely believed that the Congress party has no hope whatsoever of getting any electoral support from Mumbai’s Gujaratis.

And yet, previously too, the Congress played the Gujarati card to counter the massive support for the BJP from the community by appointing a Gujarati spokesperson for its state unit, former BJP strongman and sitting corporator from Ghatkopar, Praveen Chheda.

Expectedly, the BJP has slammed the Congress for the move stating that it is trying to please communities on the basis of linguistics and caste. “The Congress is looking at voters on caste and linguistic basis to woo people who have already left them. By taking such a decision, the Congress thinks that they will able to garner support from these communities. But it will not help the Congress at all in the upcoming Assembly elections – voters know that the state government has not done any work in the last five years,” said Parag Alavani, a BJP leader from Vile Parle and former general secretary of the Mumbai unit.

“It is a welcome move that the magazine will be published in the Gujarati language too. But, the state government should focus on making ‘Marathi’ its state language. Otherwise, if the state government is making such decisions to woo the Gujarati community in view of the upcoming Assembly election alone, it will not work for them at all,” said Gopal Shetty, newly elected BJP MP from Mumbai North.