Narendra Modi blocks all Bihar BJP leaders from campaign

AHMEDABAD: Chief minister Narendra Modi will keep all BJP leaders from Bihar out of the Gujarat election campaign. This is perhaps his way of retaliating at them for over-friendly with Nitish Kumar, the Bihar chief minister who doesn't allow Modi to campaign in Bihar for the BJP-JD(U) combine.

The list of 39 BJP campaigners, which the BJP has submitted to the Election Commission, does not include the names of Sushil Kumar Modi, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Shahnawaz Hussain, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, and Shatrughan Sinha, among others. A list of up to 40 star campaigners has to be submitted by the party, which would also bear the cost of their campaign and show it in its election expenses.

The lone vacant seat has set tongues wagging but that is beside the point. Also missing from the list are heavyweights like Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha, Vinay Katiyar, Kalraj Mishra, Najma Heptullah, Vasundhara Raje and Uma Bharati. Modi has included all the five BJP chief ministers on the list.

The names of home-grown campaigners in the list are also a subject of debate within the BJP. Of 39 names, 19 are from within Gujarat. These include five Patels, three Kshatriyas, two each of koli, dalit, thakore and tribal, and one brahmin, bania and Muslim each. Only three ministers figure here — Anandiben Patel, Fakirbhai Vaghela and Parshottam Solanki — ostensibly to woo Patel, dalit and koli voters. Among those dropped are heavyweights like Vajubhai Vala, Dilip Sanghani, Jay Narayan Vyas, Nitin Patel etc.

The lone Muslim campaigner mentioned here is Mehboob Ali Baba, a Sufi saint from Surat who also heads the BJP's minority cell in Gujarat. He gets precedence over Shahnawaz Hussain and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, the two prominent Muslim faces in the BJP nationally.