Modi-for-Rajkot seat chorus in BJP

RAJKOT: Since 1989, BJP has lost the prestigious Rajkot Lok Sabha seat only once — in 2009 when Koli leader and then Congressman from Jasdan, Kunwarji Bavalia, won by 24,000 votes. In 2014, when Modi wave swept the country, BJP won by a massive margin of 2.46 lakh votes.

Last year, Bavalia quit the Congress and was immediately rewarded with a ministerial berth in the Vijay Rupani government.
Now, chorus is building up among party workers to persuade Prime Minister Narendra Modi to contest from Rajkot. Modi won his first-ever election from Rajkot in 2002 and went on to become the chief minister of Gujarat.
A three-member team consisting of Narhari Amin, Babu Jebalia and Jaya Thakkar were in Rajkot on Thursday as part of the conventional sense-gathering exercise. After deliberations with the party workers and local leaders, the team was given to understand that Rajkot could be the best bet for Modi.
Talking to TOI, Amin said, “I personally feel that the PM should contest from Rajkot. Not only is it the most prestigious seat but also the fact that Modi contesting from here will have a positive electoral effect on the party in entire Saurashtra. If he decides to contest from any seat in Gujarat, Rajkot would be the best choice.”
According to sources, the three-member met a large number of workers from all the seven assembly segments, but none of them came with any common name for Rajkot seat candidate. The feeling was that if Modi decides to contest from here, there is no point in suggesting names of others.
Rajkot as a city has witnessed considerable development in terms of infrastructure and more importantly the water scarcity. Narmada waters have started flowing in Nyari dam. Officials said that the city will never run out of water now as Nyari-1 and Aji-1 dam have been connected through an express feeder pipeline. This means if one of the dams runs dry, it can be filled up with water from the other.
BJP is also expected to propagate selection of Rajkot for building All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), touted to be a gamechanger for healthcare in Saurashtra.
Rajkot parliamentary seat consists seven assembly constituencies including Rajkot west, Rajkot east, Rajkot south, Rajkot rural, Jasdan, Tankara and Wankaner.
Three of these constituencies — Jasdan, Tankara and Wankaner — were won by the Congress in 2017 assembly election. Moreover, Rajkot is the hometown of chief minister Vijay Rupani, who has given special attention to the city in terms of development.
Amin also brushed aside suggestion that the party was keen on Modi contesting from Rajkot due to the poor show in 2017 polls in Saurashtra when BJP lost 17 out of the 18 seats in five districts.
The debacle was a result of severe agrarian crisis according to BJP’s own post-poll assessment.
“Issues and voting in the assembly and Lok Sabha polls are completely different,” he said.
Party insiders believe that if Modi contests from Rajkot, it would also have an impact on the chances of Patidar quota stir leader Hardik Patel, who is likely to contest from Jamnagar on Congress ticket.