OBC leader Jagdish Vishwakarma set to be Gujarat BJP president

Jagdish Panchal Vishwakarma, Gujarat State Cooperation Minister and a close aide of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, is set to become the new president of the Gujarat BJP. He will replace CR Patil, who had completed his three-year term in July 2023, but was given an extension.

The party has been looking to appoint an OBC leader as a measure to balance out the caste equations where the Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel is from the Patidar community. Jagdish Vishwakarma belongs to the Luhar community, a sub-caste within the Vishwakarma OBC group.

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The change of party leadership in Gujarat has been on the cards for a long time and three BJP leaders – Jagdish Vishwakarma, Rajya Sabha member Mayank Nayak, and State Communication Minister Devusinh Chauhan were reportedly the forerunners.

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However, as of Friday evening, only Jagdish Vishwakarma filed the nomination form, making him succeed Patil unopposed. The official announcement is expected on Saturday (October 4).

“As Jagdish Vishwakarma filed his nomination form, senior BJP leaders congratulated him. Shailesh Patel, secretary, Gujarat RSS, was present during the process of filing the nomination form, and he too congratulated him,'' said a BJP leader at the party's Gujarat headquarters, Kamalam.

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“Both the RSS and BJP leadership agreed on Jagdish Vishwakarma taking charge as the BJP’s Gujarat president,” said the leader.

Who is Jagdish Vishwakarma?

Jagdish Vishwakarma, who is the Minister of State for Co-operation, Salt Industries, Printing and Stationery, Protocol (independent charge), MSME, Cottage, Khadi and Rural Industries and Civil Aviation, is a key OBC leader.

The 52-year-old leader originally hails from Banaskantha in north Gujarat and is a three-time MLA from Nikol constituency in Ahmedabad. He is an RSS member and was previously the president of the BJP’s Ahmedabad unit.

Jagdish Vishwakarma will be the third OBC president of Gujarat BJP after Kashiram Rana and Vajubhai Vala.

“Both the Chief Minister and the BJP’s state president will be from Ahmedabad. This might indicate that BJP is focusing on strengthening its base in central Gujarat, where it has been facing a lot of opposition lately. From the Sabarkantha dairy farmers’ protest to agitation in Vishwakarma’s own constituency Nikol in August, the BJP has not been able to resolve the public anger against the party. However, the more important aspect of choosing Jagdish Vishwakarma as state president would be the caste equation,” Ghanshyam Shah, a political analyst, told The Federal.

“This can also be taken as a move in response to Congress’s decision to appoint an OBC leader, Amit Chavda, as its state president. Traditionally, Congress has had a strong presence among the OBC communities, with most of its leaders originating from this community. BJP on the other hand, has been dominated by Patel leaders and has had a stronghold on the Patidar community. However, in 2022 state polls, there was a mass shift of OBC votes towards the BJP as Congress leaders belonging to OBC communities joined the BJP. But to keep up the momentum, the BJP has to ensure it keeps the community at good terms. Hence, appointing an OBC leader at the helm becomes even more crucial with the local and civic polls due in 2026 and then the state polls in 2027,” Shah added.

BJP's internal rift

As per the Jhaveri Commission report of 2023, OBC communities together form about 49 per cent of Gujarat’s electorate. Following the report’s recommendations, the Gujarat government announced a 27 per cent OBC quota in local body elections in August 2023, which had been a long-pending demand of the community.

The new president’s announcement is coming at a time when the BJP is facing an internal rift with multiple MLAs submitting written complaints about other leaders to the Chief Minister. At the same time, the party’s MLAs have been facing public ire in multiple constituencies, especially the seats won by Congress turncoats.

“Jagdish Vishwakarma’s journey from RSS worker to Gujarat government minister is well known in the state. He has been a grassroots worker and began his political career as a booth in-charge in 1988. Perhaps his RSS background is the reason the BJP is entrusting him with bringing back discipline within the party. However, it is yet to be seen how the other BJP senior leaders, especially the Patidar leaders, take this decision of the party. CR Patil is a non-Gujarati, so his nomination did not lead to an OBC-Patidar turf war within the BJP. But Patil’s predecessor, Leuva Patel leader Jitu Vaghani’s nomination as the state president in 2016, had churned quite a rebellion within the OBC leaders of the party,” said Gaurang Jani, a sociologist based in Gujarat.

However, to fit the shoes of Patil won’t be an easy task for his successor.

Patil, a close aide of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, succeeded Vaghani, a close aide of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and ensured that Modi’s home state functions as per his directive. Patil took over as the state chief after the BJP’s worst electoral performance in 2017, when the Patidar agitation had reduced the party to 99 seats in the 182-member Assembly.

Vishwakarma's challenges

“CR Patil’s successor will have a huge expectation to rise to. From 99 seats in 2017, the BJP went on to bag 156 seats in the 2022 state polls under Patil. The BJP now has 162 MLAs in the Assembly and has completely decimated the Opposition party in Gujarat. BJP also swept the local body polls in 2021, winning many Congress strongholds. That is going to be a hard target to surpass or even match,” Jani told The Federal.

Patil is also credited with balancing the turf war between Patel and OBC leaders within the BJP and maintaining a liaison between the BJP and Patidar-dominated diamond and textile sectors of Surat, one of the primary sources of funds for the party.

He is known for introducing strategies like forming page committees and digital warrior campaigns to strengthen the party.

However, many state leaders had complained that for over a year, Patil had not been open to suggestions and feedback. In a written complaint to Chief Minister Patel, BJP MLAs of Surat had alleged that Patil was running a parallel government in south Gujarat and even the BJP MLAs were finding it tough to function without his approval.

Jagdish Vishwakarma will not only be expected to keep up the electoral performance of BJP that peaked under Patil but also resolve the internal issues of the party.

A textile trader by occupation, he will also be expected to fill in the role of Patil as the bridge between the traders of the recession-hit textile and diamond industry, and the BJP government.