Gujarat: Why Opposition is crying foul over BJP’s ‘unopposed’ Surat win

A smiling Mukesh Dalal posed for the cameras with his Election Commission certificate on April 22 after winning the Surat Lok Sabha seat “unopposed” — opening BJP’s books in its fortress Gujarat with the election not even being held in the western state.

However, if Opposition parties and candidates are to be believed, the secret behind the “unopposed” success is nothing short of a Bollywood potboiler, complete with threats, kidnappings, and mysterious disappearances.

But then, Surat is not new to such political horror stories. More on that later.

Mysterious withdrawal of nominations

Focusing on the present election, despite the BJP’s chest-thumping, what raises an immediate stink in Surat is the mysterious withdrawal of nominations by as many as eight Opposition candidates. Four of them — Bharat Prajapati, Ajit Umat, Kishor Dayani, and Baraiya Ramesh — were Independents.

The other four candidates were Shoeb Shaikh of Log Party, Abdul Hamid Khan of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Party, Jayesh Mevada of Global Republican Party, and Pyarelal Bharti of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). All eight of them gave in writing to the election officer that they did not want to contest the polls.

Following that, Saurabh Parghi, the District Collector and Surat District Election Officer (DEO), declared Dalal the winner.

BSP caution goes in vain

Of the eight Opposition candidates mentioned, BSP’s Bharti was the last to withdraw his candidature, which he did on April 22, the very last date to withdraw nominations for the polls in Gujarat.

Satish Sonawne, the Surat city president of BSP, told The Federal the party got to know about the withdrawal only after Bharti had submitted his hand-written letter to the DEO. “But then, we had feared something like this would happen after the Congress candidate’s nomination got rejected and the Aam Admi Party (AAP) agreed to support BSP in the absence of a Congress candidate from the seat,” Sonawne added.

He said the party had shifted Bharti and his family to Vadodara, where they stayed till April 22. “To avoid being tracked, he had switched off his mobile, left it in Surat, and was using a new number to communicate with us. But they (BJP) might have tapped our phones and got whiff of Bharti’s whereabouts in Vadodara,” Sonawne narrated.

Picked up by Crime Branch: BSP

He said they lost touch with Bharti early on April 22. “I last spoke with Bharti at 4.30 am on Monday and he told me that a lot of people had surrounded his accommodation in Vadodara. After we lost touch with him, we searched for him everywhere. Later, we came to know that he had reached Surat, presented himself before the Surat election officer, and handed in an application that he did not want to contest, and that he was not under any pressure. We could only meet him after he left the DEO’s office later in the afternoon, after the result was declared,” Sonawne said.

According to the BSP leader, Bharti and his family were picked up from Vadodara by the Crime Branch, Surat. He was then allegedly whisked away to the DEO’s office, while his family remained in a hotel. “They were all allowed to go only in the evening,” added Sonawne.

Mysterious U-turn by proposers

Stunned already at the BSP allegation? There’s more.

Even before the BSP candidate’s ordeal began, the Congress had gone through a similarly mysterious plight, with not one but two candidates’ nomination being rejected over alleged “discrepancies” in the signatures of the proposers.

First, Congress candidate Nilesh Kumbhani’s nomination was rejected by the DEO. Then, the party’s substitute candidate Suresh Padsala’s nomination was cancelled on similar grounds.

The “untraceable” proposers

DEO Parghi had sought a clarification from Kumbhani after his three proposers — Jagdish Savaliya, Dhruvin Dhamelia, and Ramesh Polra — claimed they had not signed his nomination form. A notification was sent to Kumbhani regarding this on April 21, and he had a day to clarify.

“I tried to contact three of relentlessly but none of them were reachable. We also could not find them at their homes. They just went untraceable. We think they were either kidnapped or went underground under pressure,” Kumbhani claimed.

Notably, Kumbhani had filed his poll nomination only on April 18. On April 21, a day before the last day to withdraw nominations, Dinesh Jodhani, the election agent of the BJP candidate, raised an objection before the returning officer, claiming that the signatures of the three proposers of Kumbhani’s nomination were fake and so was the signature on the nomination paper of Congress’s spare candidate, Padsala.

Signature mismatch concluded

At 11 am on April 22, DEO Parghi held a special hearing at his office under heavy police security, where Kumbhani appeared, accompanied by his lawyers, Jamir Shaikh and BM Mangukiya.

The DEO verified the signatures of Polra, Kumbhani’s business partner, on the basis of a sales deed, Savaliya, Kumbhani’s brother-in-law, on the basis of his driving licence, and Dhameliya, his nephew, on the basis of his PAN card, to conclude that there were discrepancies in the signatures on the nomination forms.

Kumbhani’s candidature was rejected under Section 36(2) of the Representation of the People Act 1951, which states: “The returning officer shall then examine the nomination papers and shall decide all objections which may be made to any nomination and may either on such objections or on his own motion after such summary inquiry, if any, if he thinks necessary, reject any nomination on any of the following grounds: 36 2) (c) that the signature of the candidate or the proposer on the nomination form is not genuine.”

Gujarat Congress chief Shaktisinh Gohil later held a press conference, where he said, “This is the handiwork of the ruling BJP. We are moving the Gujarat High Court to seek a stay on the election in the constituency.”

Things took an even stranger twist on Tuesday (April 24), with rumours of Kumbhani joining the BJP. These were not verified. 

Not the first time in Surat

Gopal Italia, the Gujarat AAP president, said this incident was like déjà vu for them. Ahead of the Gujarat Assembly polls in 2022, Surat had witnessed a similar political potboiler, between the AAP and the BJP.

In November 2022, less than a month to go for the state polls in December, the AAP candidate for Surat East, Kanchan Jariwala, withdrew his nomination. Jarilwala, who had been “missing” for about 18 hours before the withdrawal, stated before the DEO that he was “happily withdrawing” his papers.

However, the AAP claimed that Jariwala was kidnapped and his family was threatened to pressure him into withdrawing from the poll fray.

Vanished for 18 hours

Eighteen hours after his “disappearance”, Jariwala was seen being pushed and dragged into the Election Commission’s office by the police and BJP workers to withdraw his nomination. The incident was recorded by several media organisations, and the videos were widely circulated in social media later.

“The BJP first wanted to get Jariwala’s nomination invalidated on the last date of the submission. But when his nominations were accepted, BJP goons took him to some undisclosed location. We could not find him anywhere until the next morning,” said Italia.

“Since the 2021 civic polls, AAP has made a dent in the BJP’s Patel vote bank in Surat. We still continue to hold sway over Surat. They feared us in the 2022 state polls; so, they harassed our candidate. This time, when AAP pledged support to BSP, they did the same with him,” he claimed.

Who is Mukesh Dalal, BJP’s “unopposed” MP from Surat?

Mukesh Dalal (62) has been associated with the BJP since 1981. For the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, he replaced three-time MP and minister Darshana Jardosh from Surat.

Dalal, who is from the OBC Modh Vanik (Modi) community, is the general secretary of Surat city unit of the BJP and is considered close to state party chief CR Patil.

Dalal has had a long political career within the Surat Municipal Corporation. He has been a councillor for three terms and served as chairman of the standing committee for five terms.