SURAT: It seems the sparkle of Gujarat’s diamond city, Surat, is intact for the BJP. The city, which is India’s biggest diamond and textile hub, was badly hit by the central government’s economic policies such as demonestisation and GST, but people and traders, by and large, are still rooting for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The BJP is confident that people will once again vote for the party, keeping its 30-year winning streak on the seat intact.
On the ground, there is anger among people against two-time sitting MP Darshana Jardosh. But, they concur that the Lok Sabha vote is not for her but for Modi, and issues don’t matter when it comes to electing the PM from their state.
Surat was a major centre of the Patidar movement, led by Hardik Patel, who has now joined the Congress. But even then, people here had voted for the BJP in the 2017 Assembly polls, with the saffron brigade winning all seven seats.
All the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat go to polls on April 23. Driving through the textile and diamond markets across the city, one can spot hoardings of PM at prominent locations. Such is the dominance of the ruling party in Surat city and nearby areas that a hoarding of Congress or even a flag was nowhere to be found.
Surat Lok Sabha seat, with a dominance of Patel voters, has been a BJP bastion for the last three decades, with Jardosh winning in 2014 by over 5,00,000 votes. It has a huge migrant population as well, which is employed for labour work in the textile and diamond businesses.
Office bearers of the Surat Diamond Association (SDA), which has around 5,000 merchants as members, explains that their business was impacted due to demonetisation and GST, but people who were already paying taxes and trading legally did not suffer losses. Though the association continues to face issues with the GST, they have had several meetings with the central and state governments and have been assured these will be addressed.
“The impact of demonetisation was temporary. We want the Centre to relax the norm of five per cent GST on labour work. These are big decisions taken by Modi and it will take some time to settle. He has taken some big decision on national security. There is no doubt that he committed some mistakes, but people have forgotten them and will give him another chance. Here, we only vote for Modi; the candidate doesn’t matter,” said Babubhai B Viradiya, joint secretary, SDA.
He was accompanied by half-a-dozen other diamond traders who discussed BJP’s possible gains and losses in others states. However, they were unanimous that the BJP has no competition in Surat.
The textile business, too, suffered due to GST and demonetisation as many labourers lost their jobs. Jaylal, director in the Federation of Surat Textile Traders Association, said the “implementation of GST has brought down the business by 50 per cent and increased unemployment as many small scale businesses were forced to shut down”.
“We closed the market for 17 days to register our protest against GST. But despite facing all the problems, people in Surat will vote for the BJP only,” said Jaylal.
Even among the common people, there is a strong pro-Modi sentiment. “There are 12 Assembly seats in Surat region and the BJP won all of them in 2017 despite the difficulties faced by the people due to GST and demonetization and also the fact that the Patidar movement was at its peak. We are confident of sweeping the state,” said Surat Mayor and BJP leader Jagdish Patel.