The almost month-long anger of the Rajput community members against Union Minister and BJP Rajkot candidate Purshottam Rupala is likely to ebb after representatives of 45 former royal family met in Rajkot on Thursday and decided to support Prime Minister Narendra Modi and ‘Lotus’, the BJP’s electoral symbol. The said meeting is being seen as the success of the damage control exercise which was being monitored by Delhi. Rajkot will vote on 7 May.
The said meeting, held at the Ranjit Vilas Palace Rajkot, which is the residence of the royal family of the erstwhile Rajkot State, was convened at the request of Mandhatasinh Jadeja who was crowned as the 17th king of the over 400-year-old erstwhile princely state of Rajkot in Gujarat in January 2020. Jadeja and other members of the royal family said that they will vote for the BJP to empower Modi for the sake of strengthening ‘Sanatan dharma’ and to make India a ‘vishwa guru’.
Sources said that the top BJP leadership was working behind the scene to assuage the anger of the Rajputs.
Prime minister Modi reached Gujarat on Thursday on a two days election campaign that will see him address six public meetings, covering 11 Lok Sabha constituencies Anand, Kheda, Surendranagar, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Junagadh, Porbandar, Amreli and Jamnagar.
While the members of the erstwhile royal family keep meeting for social purposes, organizing such meetings for a political reason are rare. Among those who attended the meeting included Maharaja Raol Vijayrajsinhji Virbhadrasinhji Gohil of Jamnagar, BJP leader Kesari Sinh of Wankener princely state, Nawabzada Sultan Salauddinkhan Babi- the current head of the Balasinor family and Ketan Shivendrasinhji Sahib Gohel of Palitana family.
Post-independence, of the 548 odd big states that were in existence in India, at least 125 were in Gujarat excluding the small princely states.
Incidentally, on 20 June 2011, eighteen former rulers and princes had come together at the same Ranjit Vilas Palace and projected then Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister-in-waiting at a felicitation ceremony. This was seen as a significant political development at that time as till then the royals were traditionally strong supporters of the Congress party.
The Rajputs had become upset after on 2 March , Rupala,who belongs to the “Kadva Patel” community, while attending a social event organized by the Dalit community in Rajkot, had remarked that the Dalits had stayed away from the Britishers but the Rajputs/Kshatriyas members had married the Britishers.
This had triggered a massive resentment against Rupala and despite his clarification and apologies, the Rajput community had announced that if Rupala’s candidature was not cancelled, the community would not vote for the BJP.
Earlier this week, a mega gathering of thousands of Rajput community members was organized in Surat where the leaders asked the members to use their ‘vote as a sword’ against the BJP in the Lok Sabha election. The gathering was organized under the “Kshatriya Asmita Mahasammelan”. As per the protesting members, they have ormed booth committees in all 18 wards of Rajkot, and opened the Kshatriya Samaj Central office in Rajkot to work against the candidature of Rupala. According to them, Rajya Kshatriya Samaj Sankalan Samithi (a state coordination committee) was formed after Rupala’s statement to lead the movement across the state. The panel had also organised a massive gathering in Rajkot on 14 April.