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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 MUMBAI 000190 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DRL FOR MORALES 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR KDEM PTER KIRF IN
SUBJECT: CONGRESS VERSUS MODZILLA IN GUJARAT 
 
REF: BHARAT BALLOT SERIES 
 
MUMBAI 00000190  001.2 OF 006 
 
 
¶1. (U) Sensitive But Unclassified. Please treat accordingly. 
 
 
 
¶2. (SBU) Summary: As Gujarat went to the polls on April 30, 
observers and pundits expect that the Bharatiya Janata Party, 
led by Gujarat's Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, would likely 
increase the size of its Parliamentary representation by several 
seats.  In this campaign, Modi has eschewed the politics of 
right-wing nationalism and religious conservatism, and embraced 
the mantra of development as his platform, to the dismay of his 
more right-wing supporters.  Modi has also pursued a quiet 
rapprochement with what he considers "moderate" Muslims, mostly 
Gujarat's Shia business communities.  Even critics and 
detractors concede that Modi has delivered a more efficient 
administration, a less corrupt state government, impressive 
rural progress and visible infrastructure development.  With a 
poorly-organized and demoralized Congress, many saw this 
election as a referendum on Modi's leadership.  Should the BJP 
win more seats, and should Modi succeed in reaching out to 
minority communities in the state, pundits predicted that Modi 
could stake a more credible claim to the party's leadership 
after current party leader L.K. Advani leaves the scene.  End 
Summary. 
 
 
 
Gujarat Basics: The Shape of Votes to Come 
 
------------------------------------------ 
 
 
 
¶3. (SBU) With a population of 53 million, Gujarat has 26 
parliamentary seats.  In the previous parliamentary elections in 
2004, the BJP won 14 seats, while the Congress took 12.  Gujarat 
is one of India's most developed states, and its relatively good 
infrastructure and business-friendly investment climate have 
made Gujarat a top destination in India for foreign and domestic 
investments.  The state has averaged over 10 percent growth 
since 2002.  Textiles, chemicals, auto-parts, agro-processing 
and diamond polishing are the top industries.  The country's 
largest petrochemical complexes and petroleum refineries are 
located in Gujarat.  Sixty seven percent of the total food grain 
port traffic in India passes through Kandla port, located in the 
north of Gujarat.  Mundra, India's largest private port, is 
under development in the state. 
 
 
 
¶4.  (SBU) In Gujarat, Congress and BJP candidates are the 
serious contenders in the majority of the state's Parliamentary 
seats.  The recent redistricting of constituencies and the 
absence of a major issue has made the treacherous art of reading 
the Indian voter even more difficult.  A district-by-district 
analysis with a diverse set of analysts, pundits and poll 
watchers yielded a wide range of estimates, but all agreed that 
the BJP would likely gain up to six seats in the election. 
Virtually no regional, local or third front parties are expected 
to win or gain significant traction, although they will take 
away votes from the Congress in some key races, as they did in 
the December 2007 state assembly elections.  Mayawati's Bahujan 
Samaj Party (BSP) is expected to garner one to two percent of 
the votes, mostly from the Dalit community, and a small number 
of voters will likely vote for the Nationalist Congress Party, 
both taking away from the Congress vote. (Note:  Political 
analysts argue that the BSP attracted enough votes away from the 
Congress in the 2007 elections to give victories to BJP 
candidates in close to 17 seats.  End Note.) 
 
 
 
¶5. (SBU) Previous elections have shown a strong urban/rural 
voter divide, with middle and upper middle class urban voters 
showing a strong preference for the BJP throughout Gujarat.  In 
addition, "non-Gujaratis" now constitute almost 20% of the 
population of urban centers like Ahmedabad.  These migrants from 
 
MUMBAI 00000190  002.2 OF 006 
 
 
states like Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa tend to 
vote even more heavily in favor of the BJP.  The recent 
delimitation has caused more seats to become urban.  As a 
result, there is a consensus that all six urban seats will go to 
the BJP (two in Ahmedabad, and one each in Gandhinagar, 
Vadodara, Surat and Rajkot).  Interlocutors told Congenoff that 
that a higher voter turnout will help BJP candidates in the 
closest races.  To ensure better voter turnout, the BJP 
implemented a "micro-booth planning" strategy.  Every party 
functionary, from the lowest worker to the chief minister, was 
charged with ensuring that a group of 20-30 households made it 
to the polling booths.  The reported voter turn-out of 50 
percent (versus 45 percent in the previous parliamentary 
elections) suggests that this grass-roots strategy had some 
impact. 
 
 
 
The Issues: It's Congress Versus Modi 
 
-------------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶6.  (SBU) In Gujarat, as elsewhere, the election campaigns are 
notable for the lack of defining issues.  As Congenoff toured 
Gujarat on April 27-30, however, conversation focused on the 
dominance of Gujarat's powerful Chief Minister, Narendra Modi. 
Instead of a direct contest between the Congress and the BJP, 
interlocutors proposed that the elections were more aptly 
described as a contest between the Congress and Modi.  Modi has 
consistently kept the Congress on the defensive; his proactive 
approach to governance -- some say autocratic -- has sometimes 
alienated followers and groups, but has largely endeared him to 
the majority of Gujarati who are eager for development and 
growth, and who admire a strong regional leader.  Despite the 
controversy from the 2002 riots, many major business leaders, 
such as Ratan Tata, Sunil Mittal, Mukesh Ambani, and the Birlas, 
have publicly endorsed Modi as their preferred candidate for 
Prime Minister. 
 
 
 
¶7. (SBU) After the 2007 assembly elections, Modi fired and 
replaced several previous state ministers who were perceived as 
corrupt or underperforming, although critics say political 
calculations played a role.  Modi supporters claim that the 
Congress has consistently attempted to lure these former BJP 
leaders into its fold with promises of a political payoff.  For 
the 2009 Parliamentary elections, the national BJP leadership 
gave free reign to Modi to select candidates in Gujarat.  Modi 
personally chose 23 of the 26 BJP candidates; perhaps by design, 
none have reputations beyond Gujarat, and many are relative 
newcomers to state politics.  As always, complex caste, 
political and loyalty equations came into play.  Modi replaced 
some sitting BJP MPs with political novices and some long-term 
loyalists were side-lined in favor of candidates who had 
switched from the Congress the day before.  A few candidates 
have controversial, tainted pasts -- a common theme for the 
candidates of many parties throughout the country -- and are 
under investigation for irregular activities.  Setting a high 
bar, Modi has assigned each sitting BJP state legislator to 
outperform the previous voting in their respective constituency. 
 (Note:  Depending on the constituency, six or seven legislative 
districts make up a parliamentary district.  End Note.) 
 
 
 
¶8. (SBU) Modi has worked to capitalize on dissatisfaction in 
Gujarat with the policies of the Congress-led United Progressive 
Alliance (UPA), framing the BJP's battle as a "center vs. state" 
contest.  Pinki Dalal of the "Mumbai Samachar," a Gujarati 
language newspaper in Mumbai, told Congenoff that a central 
government-mandated rise in the support price for cotton, meant 
to help farmers in Maharashtra, has negatively impacted the 
textile industry in Gujarat, especially Surat, a major 
industrial city in south Gujarat.  Higher input costs have made 
textile makers in Surat less competitive in global markets.  In 
 
MUMBAI 00000190  003.2 OF 006 
 
 
addition, she continued, the loss of an estimated 400,000 jobs 
in the diamond industry because of the global economic 
recession, also principally in and around Surat, and the 
subsequent lack of any state or central government support or 
retraining for the unemployed workers has been a source of 
simmering anger that is a negative for both the Congress and the 
BJP.  Many of the laid-off workers are from one region of 
western Gujarat, Saurashtra, and they have returned home to 
their traditional occupation of farming.  The issue of 
marginally employed, former diamond industry workers has spilled 
over into the seven parliamentary seats in Saurashtra.  Gordhan 
Zapadia, a BJP rebel attempting to tap this latent discontent, 
has formed a splinter party and fielded candidates in 16 
parliamentary districts.  However, this party is not expected to 
win any seats, and at the most will split-off votes from the BJP 
in one district (Bhavnagar).  (Note:  Zapadia gained notoriety 
as the state's Home Minister responsible for security during the 
2002 anti-Muslim riots, but has since rebelled against Modi. 
End Note.) 
 
 
 
¶9.  (SBU) The Congress and the BJP for their own reasons have 
avoided mentioning the 2002 riots in the election.  A common 
refrain amongst almost all Gujaratis is that the state has 
"moved on" since the riots, and that people -- especially 
outsiders -- should confine the riots to an aberration in 
history.  Modi's popularity -- and the widespread, latent 
support among Gujarati Hindus for the riots -- has made the 
raising of the 2002 violence an unpopular political issue.  Both 
BJP and Congress sympathizers agreed that attacking Modi on this 
front only served to galvanize his base and lionize him as a 
martyr.  The Congress avoided this issue during the December 
2007 assembly elections precisely to avoid alienating Hindu 
voters who might otherwise be persuaded to vote for the 
Congress.  The news that the Supreme Court would fast-track 2002 
cases, granting sweeping powers to its Special Investigation 
Team (SIT), broke just two days before the elections, but failed 
to damage Modi. 
 
 
 
Congress Leadership Flies In, Flies Out 
 
--------------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶10. (SBU)  According to observers, the Congress Party in Gujarat 
suffers from a lack of grass-roots organization and visible 
leaders - and a credible formula for building support through an 
interlocking web of caste and community groups.  Siddharth 
Patel, the son of a former chief minister, was recently 
appointed as the party's state chief to attract the Patel lobby, 
a dominant caste in Gujarat.  However, the vocal and powerful 
Patels, who are also divided by sub-castes, find the Congress 
unappealing due to the dominance within the party of other rival 
castes.  Amit Dholakia, a political science professor in Baroda, 
told Congenoff, "Congress is demoralized in Gujarat.  They have 
not won for 10 years."  As a result, Congress is dependent on 
national leaders like Sonia and Rahul Gandhi to fly in from New 
Delhi to draw in crowds at Congress campaign rallies.  Harshad 
Dalal, a prominent maker of Indian cigarettes in Anand, a 
traditional Congress stronghold, told Congenoffs that he plans 
to throw his weight behind the Congress, as his family has been 
Congress supporters for three generations.  Nonetheless, he 
said, "the BJP should be the ruling party in Gujarat and 
Narendra Modi should be the chief minister.  He (Modi) has done 
a good job."  Observers expect that Congress is likely to retain 
at least eight of its existing twelve parliamentary seats in 
Gujarat.  Union ministers Shankarsinh Vaghela and Dinshaw Patel 
are expected to win their seats. 
 
 
 
The BJP Banks on Development and Rural Growth 
 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
MUMBAI 00000190  004.2 OF 006 
 
 
 
 
 
¶11.  Even critics and detractors concede that Modi, for all his 
many faults, has delivered a more efficient administration, a 
less corrupt state government, impressive rural progress and 
visible infrastructure development.  (Comment:  While Modi gets 
the credit for the implementation of many economic development 
programs, most were already in place or in motion before the BJP 
came to power.  End Comment.)  Modi has prioritized development 
with almost religious zeal.  Gujarat has successfully applied a 
private-public partnership model -- the BOT (Build - Operate - 
Transfer) for infrastructure development.  Gujarat has also made 
significant strides to address rural poverty.   As a semi-arid 
region, recent good monsoons and investment in large-scale 
irrigation projects have brought water to parched farms. 
Electricity is now available in almost every village of Gujarat. 
 During the `Krushi Mahotsav' program, approximately a 100,000 
government officials, including the chief minister, state 
officials, and agricultural scientists, stayed in rural areas to 
demonstrate new farming technologies.  The Modi government is 
now turning to address issues of health, education and social 
welfare, where Gujarat's performance has been mediocre at best. 
Several contacts mentioned the "Beti Bachao" ("Save Your 
Daughter") program to address the stubborn problem of female 
feticide in the state, which has led to one of the most 
lop-sided male/female ratios in the country.  The Modi 
government has enlisted the help of the religious community to 
spread awareness of the girl-child ratio at the grass-roots 
level.  This program is augmented by "Mamta Diwas" a program for 
pre-natal care.  The state government provides free delivery 
services, school fees and cash incentives for female babies. 
 
 
 
Muslims for Modi? 
 
------------------ 
 
 
 
¶12.  (SBU) In this election, Modi has largely eschewed the 
politics of right-wing nationalism and religious conservatism, 
and embraced the mantra of development as his platform, to the 
dismay of his more right-wing supporters.  According to Kuntal 
Sanghvi of the BJP, "The VHP and the RSS are not taking keen 
interest (in the elections)."  Some of this new tone is aimed at 
securing the support of the BJP's national allies in other 
states who would be alarmed by anti-Muslim rhetoric.  However, 
over the past few years, Modi has quietly courted the support of 
some Muslim leaders in the state, hoping to build bridges with 
"moderate" Muslim communities.  Modi recently appointed 
Shabbirhussain Shekhadam Khandwawala, a Muslim, as the Director 
General of Police, Gujarat's top cop.  Retired Additional 
Director General of Police, Abdullah Ibrahim Saiyed, who had a 
brush with rioting mobs in the 2002 post-Godhra violence in 
Ahmedabad, recently joined the BJP and campaigned in a 
constituency that has a sizeable number of Muslim voters. 
Claiming to be tired of being used as a vote bank and skeptical 
that the Congress has their best interests at heart, a few 
Muslim workers from Congress and some prominent citizens are 
either coming out in support of Modi or joining the BJP. 
Recently, 200 Congress members from the minority community in 
Vadodara and Chhota Udaipur walked into the BJP fold.  Bharat 
Desai, Resident Editor of the Times of India in Ahemdabad told 
Congenoff, "The Imam of Ahmedabad is with Modi." 
 
 
 
¶13.  (SBU) Sajjad Hira, president of "Gujarat BJP Minority 
Morcha" told Congenoff that he expects 20 percent of all Muslims 
to vote for the BJP.  A post-poll study of the 2004 elections 
conducted by the National Election Studies project of the Center 
for the Study of Developing Societies found that this claim may 
have some validity.  While seven percent of Muslims throughout 
India voted for the BJP, the study found that fully 17 percent 
of Muslims in Gujarat voted for the BJP in 2004, just two years 
after the riots.  This trend is aided by the diversity of 
 
MUMBAI 00000190  005.2 OF 006 
 
 
Gujarat's Muslim communities, many of which are trading 
communities that converted to Shia Islam en masses several 
centuries ago.  Entrepreneurial instincts ensures that these 
groups -- such as the Bohras, Memons, and Khojas -- are more 
prosperous and ambitious than Muslim communities elsewhere in 
India, but are also particularly attracted to appeals to 
increased prosperity rather than Islamic solidarity.  Modi has 
largely approached these "moderate" Muslim communities and 
ignored the poorer, less business-minded Sunni communities, 
according to Rajendra Joshi, founder of an NGO that focuses on 
the urban poor.  "Muslims in Ahmedabad are mostly Sunni and they 
will vote for Congress."  Gani Qureshi, a state executive member 
and a senior Muslim leader of the BJP, told Congenoff that 
Modi's development approach -- "a rising tide lifts all boats" 
-- will increasingly endear him to many Muslims. 
 
 
 
Advani Fails to Generate Enthusiasm 
 
----------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶14.  (SBU) L.K. Advani, the leader of the opposition BJP party 
in Parliament, is expected to win his seat from Gandhinagar, 
just outside of Ahmedabad, albeit with a lower margin. 
Interlocutors had a low opinion of Advani, and contacts in the 
conservative business community - all Modi supporters - 
expressed hope that Manmohan Singh would continue as Prime 
Minister in New Delhi.  While campaigning in Gandhinagar, Advani 
has tried to raise the issue of illicit fund outflows (black 
money), accusing the Congress of ignoring the issue and 
promising to bring back money stashed by Indians in tax-havens 
like Switzerland and Lichtenstein. (Note:  Global Financial 
Integrity (GFI) based in D.C. estimates outflows from India to 
be around $25 billion per year.  GFI ranks India fifth in the 
list of 160 developing countries suffering from illegal 
outflows.  The matter has taken on urgency after the G20 adopted 
a tougher posture against tax havens and Swiss authorities 
expressed willingness to cooperate.  India is part of the task 
force constituted by the G20.  End Note.)  This campaign focus 
reportedly disappointed Gandhinagar residents, who hoped he 
would talk about local, instead of national, issues. 
 
 
 
A Referendum on Modi? 
 
--------------------- 
 
 
 
¶15.  (SBU) Comment:  Having been handed full authority for the 
Parliamentary elections in Gujarat, the outcome is seen by many 
as a referendum on Modi's leadership potential.  Modi must 
ensure the gain of several seats in the state, and prove that he 
can reach out to minority communities - especially Muslims - if 
he expects to rise from being a strong regional leader to a 
national one.  Good governance and stronger anti-terror rhetoric 
has proven to be a heady attraction for the majority in Gujarat, 
but his appeal beyond the conservative and entrepreneurial 
Gujaratis is still untested.  A charismatic speaker, Modi 
demonstrated his capability to reach voters beyond his home 
state when he successfully campaigned for the BJP in the 2008 
state elections, drawing major crowds at election rallies in 
Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh.  He has not had as 
much luck campaigning in the state of Maharashtra, outside of 
Mumbai.  However, it is not clear that leaders from other 
parties can connect with the masses across the entire length and 
breadth of this diverse-in-the-extreme country.  Several media 
contacts referred to this election as a "semi-final," with the 
"final" as a showdown between the presumed Congress leader Rahul 
Gandhi and Modi for Prime Minister, perhaps as soon as the next 
mid-term elections.  Critics say Modi is autocratic and 
vindictive, and unable to build a consensus, a skill extremely 
important in India's coalition politics.  Modi himself publicly 
and often dismisses talk of going to Delhi, saying he is 
 
MUMBAI 00000190  006.2 OF 006 
 
 
committed to serving in Gujarat.  But after Advani, Modi is odds 
on favorite as the BJP leader for the "finals."  There is no one 
else in the BJP who comes close to matching him in star power. 
End Comment. 
FOLMSBEE