On test in Gujarat: From Modi again spearheading BJP campaign to faceless Cong bid to challenger Kejriwal | Political Pulse News,The Indian Express

For the BJP the Gujarat polls would be a bellwether for the Assembly elections in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan in 2023 leading up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

With the stage set for second and final phase of voting on December 5, for the BJP the Gujarat polls would be a bellwether for the Assembly elections in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan in 2023 leading up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, says a senior party leader.

For the AAP, it will be a test not only of the party as an emerging third force in national politics, but also of its supremo and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who invested as much energy and time in the Gujarat polls as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and whether Gujaratis accept him as a challenger and are wooed by his guarantees. The BJP has dismissed Kejriwal as an “outsider” although the AAP has found some acceptance in Gujarat’s migrant melting pot Surat among Patidars, a dominant community and the mainstay of the BJP’s formidable base in the state.

Depending on its vote share, the Gujarat election will also decide if the AAP can become a national party, its confidence bolstered by its triumph in Punjab Assembly polls earlier this year, whose CM Bhagwant Mann has spent as much time as Kejriwal on the Gujarat campaign trail.

The election will also be a test of sorts for youth leaders like Hardik Patel, who is fighting his first-ever election, after having created a churn with the quota agitation several years ago, that scared the BJP first in the 2015 local body elections and then in the 2017 Assembly polls. The election is also a litmus test for Jignesh Mevani, who rose as a Dalit leader after the Una flogging incident and won as an Independent candidate in 2017 with the Congress’s backing and is now fighting on a Congress ticket, as well as for Alpesh Thakor, the OBC leader who won as a Congress nominee in 2017, joined the BJP, lost the by-election, and is now fighting on a BJP ticket from a seat, Gandhinagar South, he is not familiar with.

In the absence of any dominant Hindutva narrative, this will also be a trial run for an election based on “mool muddey (basic issues)” as former leader of opposition Paresh Dhanani puts it.