The trend of voting against Lehar has made Mehsana district a trademark of being a ‘political laboratory’ in Gujarat.
Since independence, 17 Lok Sabha elections have been held so far. The voters of Mehsana Lok Sabha seat have given different results contrary to the general trend and mood of the country. It won an independent candidate from the Swatantra Party in 1967, the Bharatiya Lok Dal in 1977, then the Janata Party in 1980 and later the Congress and the BJP.
There are seven assembly seats in the district. In 2007, the BJP won all seven; In 2017, though Mehsana was the epicenter of the Patidar agitation, the BJP won five out of seven seats. This is the reason why it is considered a ‘political laboratory’ by politicians.
The district has remembered political leaders like Atmaram Patel, Narottam Pitamber Patel, Shankarlal Guru, Motibhai Choudhary, Gangaram Rawal, Shankarsinh Vaghela, Narendra Modi, Anandiben Patel and Amit Shah, a political observer from Visnagar city, Bharat Patel. Mehsana District.
Mehsana voters have generally voted against Lehar. In 1980, when the entire country stood with Congress and Indira Gandhi, the voters of Mehsana voted for Janata Party candidate Motibhai Choudhary. Then in 1984, when the country was flooded with sympathy for the Congress after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, the BJP won two seats in the country. One of these two was Mehsana, when Dr. AK Patel had led BJP to victory. “This is one of the reasons why this place has got the nickname of political laboratory,” said Congress’ state unit vice president and in-charge of Mehsana Lok Sabha constituency, Jitubhai Patel.
Another reason, according to Jitubhai, is that among all the major movements, Mehsana has been an epicenter, be it the Kshatriya, OBC or Patidar movement in the state.
The caste equations of the district also make it a social engineering laboratory, as the district is dominated by upper caste Patidars, Kshatriya Thakors (OBC), Anjana Chaudhary Patel (OBC), Dalits, Muslims, Brahmins and other communities. Like a sample test of voting patterns in a state, political observers are analyzed when they vote for a specific party or candidate.
After the Patidar movement, Congress won only two assembly seats, Unjha – dominated by Patidars and Thakor dominated by Becharaji, but it was an uphill battle between Congress and BJP. The BJP won five seats by a small margin and this time too there is going to be a one-on-one fight between the two national parties, assesses the Congress leader.
Yet he also believes that the presence of AAP and cooperative leader Vipul Choudhary, who is Anjana Choudhary, may have some impact in the election race and it remains to be seen how far they divide the votes of which party. The Congress leader says that it is not going to be easy for the ruling party.
The ruling party has an advantage over its political opponents. BJP Mehsana District Committee President Jasubhai Patel, is hopeful that the development work done in the district will convert votes in favor of BJP candidates and the party will win by a huge margin. He is confident of winning all the seven seats and repeating the 2007 record. Bharat Patel has the same sentiment, but he is also cautious. He fears that Hardik Patel in BJP may work against the party to some extent.
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