Refugee Review Tribunal AUSTRALIA RRT RESEARCH RESPONSE Research Response Number: IND32487 Country: India Date: 12 November 2007 Keywords: India – Gujarat – BJP – Police – Law and order – Elections This response was prepared by the Research & Information Services Section of the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the RRT within time constraints. This response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. This research response may not, under any circumstance, be cited in a decision or any other document. Anyone wishing to use this information may only cite the primary source material contained herein. Questions 1. Is there any information on who controls the Sonarda/Gandhinagar area and who would have controlled this area in 2004? 2. My understanding is that the state government not local districts are responsible for law and order. Please provide any information on this. 3. Please provide information on the 2007 elections in Gujarat, and whether the BJP is still in power. 4. Is there any information on attacks in Gujarat, on BJP supporters from Congress associated people, with police inaction from 2002 to current? RESPONSE 1. Is there any information on who controls the Sonarda/Gandhinagar area and who would have controlled this area in 2004? Very little information could be located on the village of Sonarda and no information could be located which referred to the political situation in Sonarda specifically. Alternatively, a great deal of information is available on the political situation in the city of Gandhinagar and its surrounding district (Gandhinagar is the Gujarat state capital). Information on politics in the electorate of Gandhinagar follows below, though it should be noted that it cannot be said with certainty that Sonarda falls into the orbit of this electorate. Gandhinagar district and India national politics In the most recent national (Lok Sabha) elections, which took place over April and May in 2004, the seat of Gandhinagar was won by L. K. Advani of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). At this time the Rediff news service reported that the incumbent “Deputy Prime Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani on Thursday [had] won the prestigious Gandhinagar Lok Sabha seat for the fourth time in succession”; trouncing “his nearest Congress rival Gabhaji Thakore by a margin of over 217,000 votes”. Advani’s BJP failed to win government, however, and following the defeat Advani became leader of the BJP opposition (‘Statistical Report On General Elections, 2004 To The 14th Lok Sabha, Volume I (National And State Abstracts & Detailed Results)’ 2004, Election Commission of India website http://www.eci.gov.in/SR_KeyHighLights/LS_2004/Vol_I_LS_2004.pdf – Accessed 21 September 2007 – Attachment 2; ‘Advani wins Gandhinagar seat’ 2004, Rediff, 13 May http://in.rediff.com/election/2004/may/13advani.htm – Accessed 12 November 2007 – Attachment 3; for background on Advani see: ‘Profile: Lal Krishna Advani’ 2005, BBC News, 7 June http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2075803.stm – Accessed 12 November 2007 – Attachment 4). Gandhinagar district and Gujarat state politics At state elections in Gujarat it would appear that each of Gandhinagar district’s four taluks – Gandhinagar, Kalol, Dehgam and Mansa – serve as electoral constituencies. In the most recent Gujarat state election, which took place in December 2002, Gandhinagar district’s four seats were divided evenly between the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with each party winning two seats. • the seat of Gandhinagar was won by C.J. Chavda of the INC; • the seat of Kalol was won by Atul K. Patel of the BJP; • the seat of Dehgam was won by Jagdish Thakor of the INC; • and the seat of Mansa was won by Mangalbhai Patel of the BJP (‘Key Highlights of General Election, 2002 to the Legislative Assembly of Gujarat’ 2002, Election Commission of India website – Attachment 1). Voting in Gujarat’s next state election is scheduled to take place on 11 December and 16 December 2007. It may be of interest that the India Election Commission has ordered the transfer of a number of senior Gujarat police officers, including the Gujarat Director General of Police (DGP), in the lead up to the election. Reports indicate that the Election Commission considers these officers a possible impediment to free and fair elections on the basis of past conduct – some were in senior positions during the 2002 Gujarat riots – and their association with Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP government (see, for example: Suryamurthy, R. 2007, ‘2-phase poll in HP, Gujarat’, The Tribune, 11 October http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20071011/main1.htm – Accessed 12 November 2007 – Attachment 5; ‘Election Commission transfers Gujarat police chief’ 2007, Yahoo News, source: Asian News International, 15 October http://in.news.yahoo.com/071015/139/6lyvr.html – Accessed 12 November 2007 – Attachment 6). Express India has recently published an overview of the political situation in Gandhinagar in the lead up to the 2002 elections: The seat of government. Congress has not occupied Gandhinagar since 1990. Except for a year-long hiatus during the Shankarsinh Vaghela regime, BJP has been holding the keys to the capital since 1995, having spent the early 1990s with coalition governments. …Voter Profile While the city is a mix of all communities serving the government of Gujarat, Thakor OBCs constitute 65 per cent of the four talukas. Mansa has 52 per cent of the Aanjna Chaudhary population with a sprinkling of Kutchi Patels in Dehgam, Kalol, and Mansa. Has a visible Muslim presence in Kalol. Key Players Congress is ready with its list for the district. Former bureaucrat and sitting MLA C J Chavda contests from Gandhinagar. Sitting MLA Jagdish Thakor is a repeat from Dehgam. In Kalol it is Suresh Patel, though there are 10 other Thakor claimants. From Mansa it could be either Haribhai Chaudhary or ex-minister Ishwarsinh Chavda. * For the BJP, speaker Mangalbhai Patel could be dropped from Mansa. While Patel himself is raring to go, the party thinks he should retire on health grounds. His replacement could be a local builder Jayanti Patel. * Sitting Kadi MLA Atul Patel is the younger brother of senior rebel leader Dr. A K Patel. Was himself seen as unhappy, but has changed his tune in the hope of getting a ticket. * From the Gandhinagar seat, BJP district president Ashok Bhavsar is trying, but faces a next to nil chance of winning against CJ (‘The Capital: Gandhinagar’ 2007, Express India, 8 November http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/THE-CAPITAL- GANDHINAGAR/237346/ – Accessed 12 November 2007 – Attachment 7). The following report on the significance of the Patel vote in the 2007 Gujarat elections, and the history of Patel voting in Gujarat, may be of interest. With Gujarat bound for assembly polls later this year, the ruling BJP finds a crucial support base drifting away. Patidars appear to be on the warpath with Chief Minister Narendra Modi. They suspect he is determined to curtail their traditional domination of state politics. Though Patidars (also known as Patels, and originally a peasant community) constitute only around 16 per cent of the population in Gujarat, they are a formidable force as one of the state’s most prosperous castes. Today, apart from agriculture, they dominate small and medium scale industry, be it oil mills in Saurashtra or the diamond business in Surat. They form the largest chunk of Gujarati diaspora. The community’s supremacy extends to politics and the powerful cooperative and education sectors in the state. Politically, they are a decisive factor in over 60 of the state’s 182 assembly seats. Their drift towards the BJP in the late ‘80s catapulted the party to power in 1995. The community’s support continues to be crucial for the party’s fortunes in the state. It was in the mid-80s that Patidar domination started rising in the BJP, after their disenchantment with the Congress. The process of alienation began after the Congress put together a new social coalition called KHAM – Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi and Muslim, an alliance of numerically important but backward castes. After the debacle of the 1975 assembly elections, the Congress had embarked upon a social engineering exercise by expanding its base among certain deprived sections. KHAM, the result of that exercise, meant the marginalisation, if not exclusion, of upper castes like Patidars, Brahmins and Banias from Congress political strategy. Thanks to KHAM, implemented in the 1980 elections by Madhavsinh Solanki, the Congress revitalised itself, capturing power in the state by winning 141 out of 182 seats. Subsequently, the party won a few more seats in the 1985 assembly polls when it captured 149 assembly seats and 25 of the 26 Lok Sabha seats. For the first time in the history of independent Gujarat, there was not a single Patidar minister of cabinet rank in the Gujarat cabinet from 1980 to 1985. Patidars and other upper castes, therefore, started turning towards the BJP and the Chimanbhai Patel-led Janata Dal. In the 1990 assembly polls, the Congress suffered its worst defeat in the history of Gujarat. The party could win only 33 seats (its previous tally was 149); its vote share reduced from 55.5 per cent to 30.7 per cent. The party has not won an assembly election in the state since. While the JD and BJP won 70 and 67 seats respectively in 1990, together they got 56.2 per cent votes. In that poll, the Patidars were split between JD and BJP. In retrospect, the year 1990 was a turning point in Gujarat: a non-Congress government came to power, the BJP-JD coalition government headed by JD’s Chimanbhai Patel with BJP’s Keshubhai Patel as deputy CM.