‘BJP Has Seen Defeat. That’s Why It Never Loses’

‘Narendra Modi — a man with very vital experience of Indian politics — has seen the party lose so many elections between 1975 and 2015.’

‘He learned lessons every single time. That is the man who, having seen so many defeats, does not allow his party to be defeated anymore.’

‘Congress, which governed for forty uncontested years, never built that kind of hunger or discipline.’

Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel takes oath with 192 Bharatiya Janata Party candidates for 192 seats of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation before a statue of the late Jan Sangh ideologue Deendayal Upadhyaya in Kankariya, Ahmedabad. Photograph: ANI Photo

The results were almost insultingly predictable. On April 28, 2026, the Bharatiya Janata Party completed a near-total sweep of Gujarat’s local body elections — all 15 municipal corporations, 33 of 34 district panchayats, and well over 200 of the 260 taluka panchayats.

Out of roughly 10,000 seats contested across the state, the BJP bagged close to 7,500.

In Nadiad, the party won 51 of 52 municipal corporation seats.

In Porbandar and Morbi, it took every single one.

Even in Surat, where the Aam Aadmi Party had claimed 27 municipal corporation seats in 2021, the party was reduced to four.

The Congress, which had controlled 24 of 33 district panchayats as recently as 2015, was left with a presence scattered across the state. The only outlier was the Narmada district panchayat, which AAP won — a result that says more about the individual pull of tribal MLA Chaitar Vasava than about any ideological resurgence of the party.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the outcome as proof that the bond between Gujarat and the BJP had become ‘deeper and unbreakable’. His words were not merely triumphalism — they were a direct preview of what the 2027 assembly election holds.

The Congress, for its part, had gone into these polls with Rahul Gandhi’s parliamentary boast of winning the Gujarat assembly elections still hanging in the air, yet with little on the ground to show for it: No new narrative, no credible district-level organisation, no coherent counter to the BJP’s brash brand of politics.

Advocate Anand Yagnik — senior lawyer, civil rights litigator, and a man who represents nearly 10 lakh of Gujarat’s 59 lakh farmers in their legal battles against the state — decodes the Gujarat local body polls.

Advocate Yagnik is known in Gujarat for his fights against police atrocities — whether it is parading, bulldozing, or custodial abuse. His method, as he describes it, is ‘investigative litigation’ — reaching out directly to victims and fighting from the ground up.

Few observers speak about Gujarat politics with his combination of ground-level access and institutional memory.

In this conversation with Prasanna D Zore/Rediff, Advocate Yagnik reads the Gujarat result for what it is: Not a surprise, but a slow-motion collapse of the Opposition — and a warning about what majoritarian democracy looks like when it goes uncontested.

‘You have to evolve a new strategy to counter what is being called New India’

The BJP has swept Gujarat’s local body elections — all 15 municipal corporations, 33 of 34 district panchayats.
How do you read the BJP’s performance overall, and what does it say about where Congress and AAP stand today?

Then Gujarat BJP President C R Paatil with his family show their ink-marked fingers after casting their votes for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Photograph: ANI Photo

This is an expected outcome, as far as Gujarat is concerned. The BJP remains very deeply entrenched at every strata of local authority — taluka panchayat, district panchayat, municipality and municipal corporation. The machinery is intact all the way down.

The Congress, on the other hand, is completely absent — no plan, no vision, no coordination, and no involvement from the national leadership.

And remember, Rahul Gandhi had made a direct challenge to Amit Shah in Parliament, saying the Congress would win the Gujarat assembly elections in 2027. After that statement, he visited a couple of times. Nothing else happened.

The Congress is still trying to appoint district presidents and navigate a generational shift in the most conventional way imaginable. It does not know how to operate as an Opposition. As a party, it is effectively non-existent in Gujarat.

Current Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister Harsh Sanghavi assists his father on their way to cast their votes for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in Surat. Photograph: ANI Photo

There are individual leaders who are trying to galvanise people on their own — Jignesh Mewani is one example. Another is Jayesh Patel, a Koli Patel from Surat, a man with genuine roots. He was outmanoeuvred by C R Paatil and Harsh Sanghvi on the cooperatives and agriculture cooperatives front. But he remains rooted in his constituency.

During the election code of conduct period, they finally made him president of the Kisan Congress. Why wasn’t he given that role much earlier, well before any election? These decisions tell you everything about how the Congress operates. These leaders are galvanising people — not the party.

You’ve described yourself as someone who fights against police atrocities, representing nearly 10 lakh farmers. Does that ground-level access give you a different reading of this result?

Absolutely. Being a lawyer who represents 10 lakh farmers out of Gujarat’s 59 lakh farmers, being someone who fights against police atrocities in every instance — whether it is parading or bulldozing — my way of working is investigative litigation.

I reach out to the victims. So I am in constant touch with the people of Gujarat who are at the receiving end from the state, and from the BJP in particular.

And what I see is this: You have to evolve a new strategy to counter what is being called New India — which is, in practice, a Hindu India. It is a majority democracy where speaking with respect about the Ramajanambhumi is treated as a provocation, and questioning Article 370 is seen as an even more serious transgression.

The BJP has been working towards this for a very long time, with the full support of State machinery.

‘The Congress has no clarity’

The Congress leadership — is that the core problem?

Congress leaders who have served as MPs and ministers for two or three terms — people who are well respected in their own districts — have told me directly: We are here to survive politically, because the central leadership simply does not recognise us.

The second generation of such MLAs and MPs is still fighting on the ideology of secularism, but without a new vision or narrative to back it up. They are finding it very difficult to sustain themselves.

How do you counter the issue of infiltration? How do you counter the Ram Mandir? How do you counter the narrative around Pakistan? How do you shake off the identification of the Congress with Muslim interests — you have to address and disprove that notion.

And then, the Congress — whether in Kerala, Rajasthan or Karnataka — has not been able to set an example that makes other states want to follow.

Take Telangana. They have an elected government. But are they demonstrating a model that makes other states think, yes, we want this? No.

(Aam Aadmi Party national convenor Arvind) Kejriwal, on the other hand, adopted a very clear theory around health and education and expanded on the back of it. The Congress has no such clarity.

In 2015, the Congress held 24 of 33 district panchayats and 168 of 260 taluka panchayats. That was right in the middle of the Modi wave. Now they have virtually nothing. How did that collapse happen?

Because even in 2015, in the backdrop of Modi’s 2014 wave at the Centre — when Modi himself had just travelled from Vadodara to Delhi — the Congress could still hold those 24 district panchayats and 168 taluka panchayats. That was the residual strength of their ground organisation. But the moment the central leadership stopped investing in that organisation, the local leaders walked. They told me so themselves.

When your party doesn’t recognise you, you protect your own constituency rather than the party’s.

Those leaders are gone now. Some joined the BJP. Others are simply lying low. The second generation does not have the same constituency-level depth. What was once a formidable rural network has simply been left to erode.

‘AAP is a spoiler for the Congress, not a challenger to the BJP’

AAP came in as a serious challenger in 2021. Where do they stand now?

Aam Aadmi Party candidate Gopal Italia takes AAP national Convenor Arvind Kejriwal’s blessings after he won the Visavadar, Gujarat, by-election in 2025 at Kapurthala House in New Delhi. Photograph: ANI Photo/Ishant Chauhan

AAP has seen a significant number of resignations in the last six months. What they have in Gujarat is individual politics, not party politics.

There are two or three prominent MLAs — Chaitar Vasava, Gopal Italia — who are doing well in their own areas. Chaitar has real dominance in Bharuch and Narmada districts. It is because of his influence alone that AAP has taken the Narmada district panchayat this time.

Gopal Italia is a different case entirely. He is an MLA from Visavadar, which is about 400 kilometres from Surat. He left Surat to tend to his constituency in Saurashtra. The Patidar community from Saurashtra is dominant in Surat and the surrounding areas — that is his base. But in Surat itself, AAP went from 27 municipal corporation seats in 2021 to four. That is not a party expanding. That is a party receding.

Where AAP has MLAs, are they expanding beyond those constituencies? With the exception of Chaitar Vasava, the answer is no. That said, I will add a rider: Those who do not want to identify with the Congress but still want an organisational platform are joining AAP.

So AAP is a spoiler for the Congress. But I would not blame AAP for that. (MIM leader Asaduddin) Owaisi does his politics and takes away a section of the Muslim vote — that does not make him an opponent of Mamata in Bengal or Tejaswi in Bihar.

Everyone has a right to develop their own constituency. AAP’s presence in Gujarat hurts the Congress. It does not affect the BJP at all.

Surat specifically — what is the political dynamic there?

BJP supporters celebrate their winning civic body elections outside a counting station in Ahmedabad, April 28, 2026. Photograph: ANI Photo

Surat has roughly 20 lakh people who originally came from Saurashtra — migrants of the last 40 to 50 years who came looking for a better future and have now embedded themselves completely into the city’s diamond business, its social life, its cultural institutions.

The mayor and deputy mayor of Surat are both from Saurashtra. There is a longstanding friction between the original Surtis and what they call the ‘Kathiyawadi gang’. The BJP plays a twin role — it looks after the Surtis as well as the Saurashtra migrants. It is smart enough to hold both sides.

The BJP, as a party, ensured that AAP did not repeat the seats it won in the last Surat Municipal Corporation election. And they didn’t. If AAP were genuinely expanding as a party, you would see it across multiple constituencies. You don’t.

So the 2027 assembly election — you are saying the BJP’s victory is already sealed?

There is no question that the BJP is going to win in 2027. AAP is a spoiler for the Congress, not a challenger to the BJP. The Congress is non-existent. And the BJP knows how to manage anti-incumbency.

In Gujarat, women are not being paid Rs 1,500 to Rs 3,500 a month the way they are in other states. The LPG cylinder is not available at Rs 400 or Rs 500. There are no Mahila schemes of that kind.

Gujarat is, frankly, one of the states with a poor fiscal balance sheet. And yet, none of that translates into votes against the BJP. The BJP is acting smart as far as electoral politics is concerned. That is the sum and substance of it.

‘Gujaratis, by nature and by trade, are not easily drawn into communal politics’

Modi described these results as proof the bond between Gujarat and BJP has become ‘deeper and unbreakable’. Is that historically justified?

Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel meets Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi. Photograph: @PMOIndiaX/ANI Photo

Between 1950 and 1990 — forty years — nobody could touch the Congress in Gujarat. The BJP got its first foothold in four municipal corporations only in 1986, and only because of a series of riots, anti-reservation agitations, and the Congress failing to provide effective leadership in the cities.

The Congress lost the state in 1989, and Chimanbhai Patel came to power. Then, after the fall of the Babri Masjid, there was a split in the Janata Dal and the Congress briefly aligned with it. But the Congress should have learned lessons — under Rajiv Gandhi, under Sonia Gandhi, under Rahul Gandhi. A new vision and a new narrative were never forthcoming.

And most people in Gujarat will tell you plainly — Rahul Gandhi is a good human being, achcha banda hai — but not a good politician.

The BJP was at the receiving end for forty years. And Narendra Modi — a man with very vital experience of Indian politics — has seen the party lose so many elections between 1975 and 2015. He learned lessons every single time.

That is the man who, having seen so many defeats, does not allow his party to be defeated anymore. The Congress, which governed for forty uncontested years, never built that kind of hunger or discipline.

The BJP has seen defeat for 40 long years in Gujarat. That’s why it never loses in Gujarat today.

In Godhra, a Hindu Independent woman won from a ward that is almost entirely Muslim. How do you read that?

These are aberrations. Nothing much to be read into it. There is no sudden Hindu-Muslim unity in Gujarat that this signals.

What you have to understand is that Gujaratis are a trading community. We have been in contact with the Muslim world for over 1,500 years. The first mosque was built in Gujarat in the early centuries of Islam’s arrival. The Gujarati language carries the influence of 54 languages — 24 of them from the Middle East, from Farsi to Turkish.

We are traders. We have always done business with the Muslim world. So Gujaratis, by nature and by trade, are not easily drawn into communal politics.

The communalisation that has taken place in Gujarat has been a deliberate, sustained political project by the BJP — as a counter to the Congress’ brand of politics. That project has been enormously successful. But one aberration in one ward in Godhra does not change that picture at all.

Photographs curated by Manisha Kotian/Rediff