When it comes to Gujarat, Narendra Modi knows one thing for sure – when nothing works, Narendra Modi works. So, for the uninitiated, while the choice of C.R. Paatil (earlier Patil), a former police constable and MP from Navsari in south Gujarat, as the new state Bharatiya Janata Party president, may not appear in sync with the clichéd caste balance analysis that would normally mean a Patel or an OBC in the position, some would call this surprise move a masterstroke only because it was Modi’s decision and few had guessed it was coming.
Then the fact that a non-Gujarati was made the chief of the Gujarat unit of the BJP made headlines: Modi was praised for demonstrating that he, and therefore his party, is above all caste divisions.
But what didn’t make the news – or was only a footnote – was that Paatil had been jailed twice and had twice been suspended as a constable of the Gujarat Police for his proximity to bootleggers in this dry state and for trying to form a police union.
Public memory couldn’t be shorter.
Except for his birth in 1955 in Jalgaon, Maharashtra, which he argues was then part of the same state since Gujarat had not yet been born, there is little about Paatil that is non-Gujarati. His father was also a policeman and the family moved to south Gujarat when Chandrakant was in his teens and studied at the Industrial Training Institute in Surat. Paatil – who changed the spelling of his surname for astrological reasons – joined the Gujarat Police in 1975.
After a chequered police career, he joined the BJP in 1989 and came close to Narendra Modi who was then the state general secretary. This was in 1995 when Shankersinh Vaghela revolted and unseated the first BJP government in Gujarat, making political allegations against Modi. Paatil was then part of the late Kashiram Rana’s camp which supported Vaghela, but reportedly warmed up to Modi later. Former chief minister of Gujarat Keshubhai Patel also appointed him chairman of State PSU Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals Ltd (GACL) after the formation of the second BJP government in 1998.
He was still the GACL chairman when arrested in October 2002 in the Diamond Jubilee Cooperative Bank scam in Surat when his firm, Abhishek Estate Pvt Ltd, defaulted on a loan of Rs 54 crore and the bank was suspended from the clearing houses, leaving thousands of investors in the lurch. He remained behind bars for well over a year and a half and was then given bail by the Gujarat high court on the undertaking that he would return the money. He was jailed again in April 2005 in the same case.
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Paatil had taken the loan from the Diamond Jubilee Bank to buy 48 acres of land in the Sachin GIDC Estate, but defaulted on the payment. He then moved the Supreme Court, which granted him bail in July 2005 on the condition that he would repay the loan. He subsequently did so and paid Rs 88 crore with interest, to be finally free from the case the next year.
Arguably, since this is on his record, all this is in the past and has been swept aside. Few would remember it anyway, as long as Narendra Modi is the Gujarat BJP’s saviour.
So why is C.R. Paatil, who won the 2019 Lok Sabha elections with a record margin of 6.89 lakh votes in his third consecutive victory, not a Union minister? He has, it is learnt, nurtured his constituency well. His initiatives of turning a village “smokeless” and another an “adarsh gram (ideal village)” earned him good press. Sources had told this writer earlier that Paatil had been retained in Gujarat for there were other responsibilities in store for him.
The state presidency was perhaps the other responsibility. There are five key reasons why Modi – and not Amit Shah – has picked CR to replace Jitu Vaghani, a Patel by caste and an Amit Shah protégé, to lead his Gujarat dispensation.
1. The BJP in Gujarat faces a serious crisis of leadership of the kind that Modi wants and trusts: someone who is spirited, has new ideas and, simultaneously, is a die-hard loyalist whose wishes remain as limited as Modi wishes. CR fits the bill. In the 2017 assembly elections when the BJP was fast proceeding towards a sure defeat, he managed all the 16 Surat city and district seats even in those impossible places where the maverick Hardik Patel was drawing huge Patel (or Patidar) crowds.
Curiously, even the trends that emerged during counting continued to spell doom for the BJP candidates after every round until a sudden spurt emerged in Surat district. The BJP won by only seven seats, all from the diamond city. Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and state BJP president Jitu Vaghani had failed to lead the party to victory, despite all the rallies by Modi himself. The 2019 victory was an aberration, where except for Modi, nobody else counted – the BJP not only won all 26 Lok Sabha seats for the second time in a row but also took them with surreal margins.
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2. CR was handpicked by Modi as one of his campaign managers in Varanasi in 2019 to handle all backroom activities.
3. Paatil is a key link between the party and the cash-rich textile and diamond industries and could be a quick and effective fund-raiser for the BJP. Additionally, he also demonstrated his loyalty by trying to implement Modi’s schemes in not only his constituency but also around it.
4. Modi wants to create a stronger fiefdom in the south Gujarat region where the Congress has no regional satraps or caste leaders, unlike in Saurashtra and North Gujarat, where Hardik Patel, as the new working president of the state Congress, promises to be a force to reckon with. As a source said, “There is an overdose of Saurashtra and north Gujarat” in the current BJP leadership. With Paatil and more organisational changes expected soon, south Gujarat – and urban central Gujarat – could be a balancing force that could offset any setbacks in Saurashtra and north Gujarat.
5. Modi and Amit Shah, insiders claim, want to reduce the BJP’s decades-old dependence on the Patidars where the Congress, riding on the back of Hardik Patel, has driven a wedge. This would also mean promoting leadership from south Gujarat, including the tribal belt where the party has made inroads, though doesn’t have complete control as yet.
Caste arithmetic – irrespective of the conventional political argument – is not as high a priority in Modi’s scheme of things as is disciplining the state unit that has been divided since his departure to Delhi. After all, Jitu Vaghani, the outgoing president, was only a Patel and not a leader with reach outside his home district of Bhavnagar.
As of now, the state BJP leadership is a curious combination of communities. Chief minister Vijay Rupani is from the minuscule minority Jain community and not even a leader in that community. State BJP president Chandrakant Paatil has no caste resonance and, technically, no Gujarati voice.
Fresh speculations that with Vaghani, who is Amit Shah’s man, out of the picture, Vijay Rupani, another Shah man, may not be far behind, can be reserved for the days to come.
And then, when nothing works in Gujarat, Narendra Modi works.
Darshan Desai is Editor, Development News Network, Gujarat. He can be reached on info@dnnonline.in.
