Why Gujarat Home Minister Harsh Sanghavi got the label Next Amit Shah

Sanghavi was visiting his hometown Surat after a stone-pelting incident had disrupted a Ganesh visarjan (immersion) rally in the city. Seven Muslim men from the Sayyedpura area were accused of the stone pelting.

They were publicly flogged and paraded around the area by the local police, a force that Sanghavi heads.

'Mini-Pakistan'

Two days later, Sanghavi said in a statement: “We are doing a combing operation in mini-Pakistan (referring to Rander) area to arrest 27 Muslim men and demolish their homes. These 27 men are the masterminds behind the attack on the Ganesh visarjan rally. Stone pelters do not have any human rights.”

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Rewind to March 2007, when Amit Shah, then state Home Minister, had labelled Juhapura, an urban Muslim ghetto in Ahmedabad, as ‘mini-Pakistan’, after a small-scale communal clash took place in an adjoining area. Men from Juhapura were picked up and paraded through the area at Shah's behest.

According to Sofia Khan, an Ahmedabad-based advocate and rights activist, Amit Shah was the first political leader to refer to an area in Gujarat as ‘mini-Pakistan’.

“The state had seen communal riots earlier but this was unheard of. Since then, however, it has become a habit to refer to the Muslim-dominated areas in Gujarat — like Rander in Surat, Juhapura in Ahmedabad or Tandalja in Vadodara — as mini-Pakistan and the area where the nearest Hindu neighborhood begins as the border,” Khan told The Federal.

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Culture of police excess

Further, these ghettos located at the outskirts of the respective cities came up after Muslims began to shift and stay together for safety after the 2002 riots, she pointed out. "And still, the residents of these areas are being subjected to discrimination and apathy at the hands of the ruling BJP government,” she added.

A Juhapura resident, she recalled that when Amit Shah had dubbed the area as "mini-Pakistan", there was "a sense of jubilation" around Vejalpur, a Hindu-dominated area adjoining Juhapura. "The Muslims who had shifted for safety to Juhapura felt unsafe. For many days, men would take turns to do a night watch in the area,” she shared.

Khan, who is the lawyer representing the men arrested by the Surat police from Rander for allegedly conspiring to disrupt the Ganesh visarjan rally, said Sanghavi has brought back the culture of police excess on Muslims that Shah was known for during his stint as home minister.

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'The next Amit Shah'

Noticeably, Sanghavi who openly admits he is a student of Shah, is often called the ‘next Amit Shah of Gujarat’ and compared to his political guru for having a similar grip on police administration as the Gujarat home minister. He also makes provocative speeches and takes extra-judicial action against minorities.

However, that is not all about Sanghavi that reminds Gujarat of Shah’s regime.

According to Manishi Jani, an Ahmedabad-based sociologist and academician, Sanghavi’s early political career seems to match Shah's trajectory.

“Shah, who had come to BJP from the ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad), was known as a political strongman of Sarkhej, a constituency on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, long before he became known as the right-hand man of Narendra Modi and a political mastermind within the BJP," Jani told The Federal.

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Shah was practically unbeatable in Sarkhej. When the Congress fielded Shashikant Patel, who was a popular leader of the area back then, local real estate companies were warned not to offer their premises to Patel for his campaign office,” he recalled.

Strong-arm tactics

Within a week, a four-year-old case against Patel was reactivated and he was arrested. Eventually, Shah won by a margin of over one lakh votes and 75 per cent vote share.

Harsh Sanghavi also uses strong-arm tactics to frighten off rivals, it is said. “Just like Shah, Sanghavi too was an ABVP leader and later was known as the strongman of Majura area of Surat," Jani added.

“Sanghavi had won from Majura in 2012 by over 30,000 votes. But, when Congress fielded Balwant Jain in 2017, BJP made sure that he did not get a space for his campaign office in Manjura. Jain is a textile trader by profession and the BJP made sure the Congress candidate didn't get any support from the textile traders who dominate the constituency. Sanghavi won by over one lakh votes and 83 per cent vote share,” he added.

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Shah's protege

Sanghavi, who now holds nine portfolios apart from Home, the highest after Chief Minister Bhupendrabhai Patel, was handpicked by Shah in 2007 when he was just 16.

Since then, Sanghavi has been seen as Shah’s political protege — his eyes and ears in the state. Sanghavi met Shah at an ABVP event in Surat where Shah, a former member, was the main speaker.

It was during the event that Sanghavi, the son of a diamond merchant from Surat and in-charge of the ABVP's ‘ghar wapsi’ events amongst the Christian tribals, caught Shah’s attention.

Sanghavi was later sent to work under BJP leader and minister Anurag Thakur. He has not looked back since then. From being handpicked as a backroom boy in Narendra Modi's campaign room in Varanasi in 2014 to accompanying Modi on his foreign trips, Sanghavi has all along remained close to Amit Shah.

Shah ensured he got the Home portfolio to keep a check on the administration in the state.

Freedom of Religion Act

There's more that Shah and Sanghavi share in common, it seems.

Talking to The Federal, advocate Shamshad Pathan recalled how Amit Shah was in charge of the ghar wapsi events during his ABVP days before he met Modi. The first thing he did as a home minister was to bring in the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act or the Ghar Wapsi Act, as it was commonly referred to back then.

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“In 2007, Shah had brought the law targetting Christian tribals, to stop them from converting. The law that required the permission of the district collector before any religious conversion was put into effect in retrospect from May 2005. Thus, any conversion from the date was deemed illegal. Post 2014, the saffron party’s focus shifted from Christians to Muslims with the agenda shifting from ghar wapsi to love jihad,” Pathan pointed out.

When Sanghavi became the Home Minister, his first movewas to amend the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act. “He made the punishment more stringent and non-bailable and added a clause in which the family of the alleged accused can also be arrested. He hailed it as the government’s attempts to check the growing menace of love jihadis,” added Pathan.

Praise for Sanghavi

Sanghavi’s methods, however, have won him praise from the party leadership and his political guru.

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Janakbhai M Patel, Gujarat BJP vice-president and former Surat MLA, said: “Sanghavi is a workaholic, just like our senior leaders Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. Both Modi and Shah were impressed by his organisational skills. Even before he became a BJP member, the work he had done among the tribal youth was appreciated by the party leadership.”

According to Patel, that is also one of the primary reasons for his phenomenal growth at such a short time. “Since he got the Home portfolio, he has done amazing work that has been applauded by the people of Gujarat,” he added.