The Observer Vol 21 Issue 3

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The Observer An IIJNM publication

NGOs reach out to ones in need during hard times, try to help marginalised community | P 3

Vol. 21, Issue 3

By Kashish Sharma

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Youths opting for PGs due to high deposits

By Ayndrila Banerjee

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any young people in Bengaluru find it tough to pay the security deposit for renting flats expensive, leaving them with no option but to find paying guest accommodation, they say.

Staying in PGs saves a lot of their money. For their part, landlords say collecting a security deposit is a tradition in the city.This causes inconvenience to people who move to the city to start their careers, they shared.

Details on page 3

Though they have bank a/cs, women still don’t enjoy financial freedom| | Credit: Apeksha Priya Also, rural women have the advantage of self-help groups that train them to operate bank accounts and help them to become digitally competent.

An increase in the number of migrant workers is also a reason for the increase in the number of accounts. Women back in villages often depend upon their husbands’ wages, which reach them through bank accounts.

Under the scheme, a basic savings deposit account can be opened in any bank branch with

zero minimum balance. As detailed in a 2017 report in The Hindu, the number of womenheld bank accounts increased from 39 percent to 61 percent within only one year of the Jan Dhan Yojana coming into force.

A financial survey showed that at least 50 percent of women admitted having low or no confidence in their financial decision-making capabilities, according to a report published by The Times of India.

Meenakshi Agarwal, a teacher in Bengaluru, said that despite having a salary account and a debit card of her own, she often takes financial advice from her husband on matters of investment and finance as she feels unsure about her decision.

Gauri, a resident of, Kumbalgodu, shared: “I have a salary account because it is the only way I can get my salary.” A divorcee who lives with her parents, she said that before she started working in an institution, she did not have a bank account. She is familiar with payment virtual applications like Google Pay. Meena Nazkani, running a boutique, said that though she has a savings account, most of the transactions occur through her husband’s account.

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We’ve no time to do wastewater surveillance for Covid: BBMP

Contradicts media reports it would do so

By Chhavi Vohra

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he BBMP has said that it has no time or knowledge to conduct wastewater surveillance for Covid-19, completely denying media reports that it plans to conduct such an exercise.

“The BBMP has nothing to do with wastewater testing for Covid-19. We already have much on our plate and have no time to even think about wastewater

Website: http://www. theweeklyobserver.in

BMRCL’s efforts to make Metro safer for women go in vain as they refuse to ride in it after 8 pm | P 3

Most of them have no say in how to spend their own money

bank requires her to be present, said Chandrakala, who runs a small shop in Kumbalgodu.

An official from a private sector bank in Bengaluru who did not want to be identified said there are many reasons for an increase in the number of women’s bank accounts. One is the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, which makes it mandatory for women to have accounts into which the government can directly transfer money under various government schemes especially for women.

Epaper: https://issuu.com/ theweeklyobserver/docs

Tuesday, October 5, 2021

Women’s bank a/cs rise, but they remain financially dependent

arnataka has seen a 29 percent rise in women’s bank accounts as per the StateFact Sheet of the National Family Health Survey (2019-20), but this does not necessarily mean that they are financially independent.

As per the State Fact Sheet of the NFHS, the percentage of women in Karnataka who had savings accounts was 59.4 percent in 2015 which rose to 88.7 percent in 2019.

Chandrakala, a resident of Kumbalgodu,informed The Observer: “ I have a Modi account which I use to get my gas subsidy, which is roughly around Rs 200.

For a few months, I have not been getting my subsidy. Apart from this account, I don’t have any other account, but my husband and son do have one.”

Her son does most bankingtransactions, including withdrawal of money. Only when the

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BBMP officials deny wastewater monitoring for Covid-19, citing work pressure and time constraints. | Courtesy: LSU.edu testing for Covid-19,” the BBMP health department’s Chief Commissioner D Randeep informed The Observer. Asked about contrary statement given by Swasti Health Catalyst, an NGO, he added: “No, we know nothing

about it.”

Saoor S.B., a project manager at Swasti Health Catalyst, said: “We are in charge of the Bangalore initiative of sewage surveillance for Covid-19. It is being carried under our platform ‘Precision Health’. We will further extend the initiative to other cities as well. Currently, we have a team of five who are implementing the project. We carry out tests in research labs which bring to light regions having high Covid-19 transmission rate. As of now, 45 spots have been identified throughout different localities of Bangalore. Six-seven boys are sent to collect sewage samples.

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FB, Insta & WhatsApp go down, users unhappy

By Arshreet Singh

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opular social media platforms Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram were inaccessible to users Monday night.

The outage began at around 9 PM IST, and lasted nearly 6 hours.

According to a post by Facebook, configuration changes to the routers which coordinate network traffic between the data centers caused issues which interrupted communications. This disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way data centers communicate, bringing all services to a halt.

Anisha Reddy, a student living away from home said, “I couldn’t talk to my parents for 2-3 hours.

My sister who lives abroad was also unreachable.” “It made me feel uneasy,” she added. She told The Observer that these media companies “Need to get their act together.” When asked to elaborate what she meant, she added: “They should conduct a review so that it doesn’t happen again.”

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News briefs Priyanka to Modi: I’m in custody without FIR “Your government has kept me in custody for the last 28 hours without any order and FIR,” Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra tweeted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday. “Focus of Uttar Pradesh government is propaganda & amp; public relations to enable itself to remain in power,” she said.

Nepal plane skids off Kathmandu taxiway An aircraft of Nepal’s National carrier Shree Airlines, with 80 people on board, skidded off the taxiway of Tribhuvan International Airport at around 10.30 am as it was taking off for Nepalgunj. However, no casualties were reported in th incident, reported the airline.

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The Observer Tuesday, October 5,2021

Few women in Bengaluru willing to take the Metro after 8pm

Fear they will be harassed on trains, at stations

By Arshreet Singh

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omen in Bengaluru are wary of taking the Metro late at night due to security concerns.

Many women commuters informed The Observer they are not comfortable riding on the Metro alone after 8 pm, despite the BMRCL providing separate women’s coaches and deploying surveillance cameras.

Tenzing Lhamo, a student from Manipur, said: “I will never ride the Metro alone, especially at night time. I would rather take an Uber after dark.”

The BMRCL announced in September that Metro trains would run between 6 am and 10 pm.

Most of the women agreed that Bengaluru is safer than other cities in India, but they would still not to use the Metro after 8 pm as they are fearful.

“I always use the women’s section. I never travel alone at night,” said Anjali Menon, a regular commuter, adding that it makes her feel uncomfortable.

BMRCL guards appointed inside Metro stations and on trains often allow women to carry pepper spray as they know that these women will have to use other modes of transport along with the

Women avoid traveling by Metro late at night, fearing unwelcome glances by men | Credit- Arshreet Singh Metro to reach their destinations.

Anjan G, who works for Breakthrough India, a women’s rights organization, shared: “I was waiting for a friend at the Sandal Soap Factory Metro Station around 10 at night. I saw a girl being harassed by a drunk man who was making inappropriate signs at her. I asked her if she was OK, and offered to wait with her until her cab arrived.”

For many commuters, harassment on Metro trains and at stations is not uncommon.

Inspector M.L. Girish of the Banashankari Women’s Police Station categorically denied any complaints of sexual harassment

Across the CITY Internet Commerce Summit (ICS 2021), October 6, Conrad Annual Conference Asian Society of Lifestyle Medicine, October 7, Radisson Blu, Sampangiram Nagar Blood donation camp by Sanjjanaa Galrani Foundation,October 9, Vinayaka Nagar World Congress on Advanced Pharmacy and Clinical Research, October 9 Open Source India, October 9, Hombegowda Nagar International Conference on Big data, Machine Learning and IOT, Sunday, October 10

Quiz 1.Which country has the most number of islands in the world?

2.Which monarch officially declared ‘Valentine’s Day’a holiday in 1537?

3.The first dictionary was written by whom?

4.Dead Sea is located between which two countries?

5.Which is known as the ‘Playground of Europe?’

6.Which French business tycoon passed away recently?

7.Which country won the first ever soccer world cup in 1930?

8.What is Agoraphobia?

Answers on Page 4

being reported by the Metro authorities or commuters. He said the station does not get any complaints of sexual harassment.

Meenakshi Giridhar of Durga India, an NGO addressing sexual harassment in public spaces, shared: “Going to the police is not a pleasant experience even in most serious cases. The interrogation itself can be humiliating.”

She shared an experience she had witnessed while travelling on Namma Metro: “A girl was travelling with me in the general section, and I saw a man constantly looking at her and following her. I noticed it because I am constantly on the lookout for

such behaviour. I then tried to engage with the girl, tried talking to her to make him see that she was not alone.”

Giridhar, who interacts with hundreds of women through her NGO, said she knows many women who fear getting stared at by men in the Metro. “Our goal is to create a world where she can just be,” she added.

Most public spaces were inherently designed by men and are advantageous for men. A man can roam freely at any time of the day but a woman can’t. “It is our fundamental right to be free,” Giridhar said.

About the efforts of her organization to ensure safety for women, she said: “We help build allies in the journey of safety.

People often see harassment in front of them but stand by silently without doing anything about it. So we train bystanders.

A bystander can be anyone from a street vendor, an auto driver, a Metro security personnel to a citizen,whoever is present.

The responsibility of a bystander is to look out for others in need. If you see someone in distress…, you should go and tell her I’ll wait with you until your cab arrives.”

According to the National Crimes Record Bureau’s data on women’s safety, Kolkata is the safest largest metropolis for women in India, while Delhi is the most unsafe. arshreet.s@iijnm.org

Citizen’s Voice Investment in silver ETFs calls for caution Recently, SEBI allowed mutual fundsto introduce silver exchange-traded funds. While this offers investors a wider avenue of metals to invest in such as silver, platinum and palladium over the traditional gold ETFs, they need to be cautious when correlating silver to gold. Silver has its own demand and supply, and is, to some extent, independent of the demand for gold. Moreover, AMCs back their gold ETFs by possessing a stock of gold bars.

This may take some time to be applied to silver.

Snehi Shah

Shreyas should be in playing XI for T20 Cup

Shreyas Iyer once again played an anchor role for DC in the matchagainst Mumbai Indians and ensured his team crossed the finish line. On the contrary, Ishan Kishan has been dropped

by MI, and Suryakumar Yadav has looked off-colour in this leg of IPL. In such a case, it will only be justifiable if Iyer is not considered a reserve player and made a part of the main squad for the T20 World Cup, which is just two weeks away.

Bansal Shah

Let pvt insurance go to rural areas

The government is contemplating allowing participation of FIIs up to 20 per cent in the LIC IPO. There is almost no penetration of private insurance companies in rural areas. The Government must think of promoting it.

Preeti Bodas

Bengaluru NGOs step up to help people hit by Covid-19 and subsequent lockdowns

By Anwesha Singh

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everal NGOs in Bengaluru are helping people hit by the pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns.

“Our main purpose is to produce reusable products and make people aware of menstrual hygiene,” Divya G. who works as an embroidery teacher at MITU Foundation, informed The Observer.

The NGO is involved in making recycled products. Almost all products available there — purses,handbagsand envelopes — are made with clothes and reused paperdonated by people.

“We don't buy any new clothes.

We make products ranging from masks to sanitary pads from the clothes that we get as donation,”, Divya shared with The Observer.

“I am learning embroidery here and it is nice. I am learning a skill that would improve and make my life better,”, said a student interning at the MITU foundation.

Asked about how the training will help them, another student said: “I study in Malleswaram Ladies Association High School.This training helps in my

Women learning embroidery in an NGO| Credit- Anwesha Singh college assignments.” Another student said that learning these skills will help her to open up her own cloth products store from which she can generate some income.

The NGO is involved in charity too, helping women in need.

“We make diapers and napkins, caps and balls.These are donated to BBMP hospitals for poor women….The eco-friendly and reusable sanitary pads made by made by our girls are given to

poor and marginalized girls of society,” said Divya.The different products are put up on sale at various events across Bengaluru and the money collected is used in making baby kits and reusable pads which are then donated, thus helping the ones who are in need of assistance.

Raise Empower Women Around (REWA) is helping helpless and destitute women. Abhishek Sarang said he started the NGO

back in 2014 with the aim of helping women in need. Along with Touchstone, a pre-school, he started the ‘Ujjawal initiative’, which aims to provide education to children from marginalized communities in the city.

“Every child has the capacity and potential to do good in life. The only problem is that some children don’t get the opportunity to do something good; they don’t get access to good quality education,” he, said.

Shikha Mohan, principal of Touchstone, said: “Providing education to children of maids, domestic staff, auto drivers, etc. feels nice.

Janaki Deepak, mother of a five-year-old student, shared:“The teacher teaches very well. I am very happy that even in this pandemic, my child is getting good quality education. She also has extracurricular activities like, drawing, coloring, and water coloring and others.”

During the lockdown, PM Modi had called upon NGOs to come forward and provide help to the underprivileged. anwesha.s@iijnm.org

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The Observer Tuesday, October 5, 2021

High deposits force youths to opt for PG accommodation 11 months rent is non-negotiable for flat owners

By Ayndrila Banerjee

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engaluru’s youths have a hard time finding affordable housing. Owing to high security deposits, many live as paying guests instead of renting apartments.

Protyush Goswami, who moved to Bengaluru four years ago from Kolkata, informed The Observer: “When I was offered a job in Bengaluru, I was not able to afford a flat since the rent was quite expensive compared to (that in) Kolkata. The main disadvantage of renting out a flat in Bengaluru is the high security deposit that has to be paid....”

“In most localities, the deposit is usually 10-11 months (of rent) which will take out around Rs 1,50,000 from my bank account if the rent is Rs 15,000,” he added.

High security deposits often force people to stay in locations which are not their initial choice.

Sombit Roy, who lives in Electronics City, said: “I know quite a few people who couldn’t afford to stay in an apartment of their choice solely due to the high security deposit. This has been a genuine problem for people looking for flats on rent.”

To get over this problem, young people choose to live in groups; it helps distribute the rent and the security deposit. “The most viable option for bachelors in Bengaluru is to share a flat with at least

Sky-rocketing deposits forcing youths to seek accomodation in PGs Credit-: Ayndrila Banerjee three people. This helps us share the burden of a high security amount.”

But people who are not comfortable sharing their space with others have to live in paying guest accommodations with single-room sharing.

Malika Kar, who lives in a PG, shared: “A PG culture is evolving in Bengaluru. For much less rent and up to only two months of security deposit, people are getting much better facilities in PGs starting from cooked food to

house cleaning. This is why more and more people are shifting... towards PGs rather than living in expensive flats.”

“You can negotiate with owners.

They might decrease the amount to six to seven months, but that’s rare. Most owners insist on charging a minimum of 11 months deposit,” Kar added.

P. Uthappa, a land owner who has rented out his flat located in L&T South City, said: “Actually, the deposit is for 10 months, but I have asked for only eight

months.”

Javed Khan, who lives in a PG in KR Puram, noted: “In Bengaluru, it is almost compulsory to go through a broker while renting a flat. The commission they charge is non-refundable, so along with a 10-month deposit, you have to pay one month’s rent in the form of brokerage.”

A flat owner in Vijayanagar who did not want to be named said: “The rent varies from flat to flat.

If it’s a 1BHK flat, then the rent is Rs 14,000 per month; for a 2BHK flat it is Rs 18,000 per month. I charge a security deposit of 10-11 months which is a common practice in Karnataka for a long time. Most people know they have to pay this amount; they don’t have any option.”

Rent is a considerable percentage of young people’s monthly budgets. Protyush pays 17.14 per cent of his monthly expenditure as rent.. Sombit spends around 12%, while Javed spends as much as 60% on rent out of his total budget.

Rent varies from area to area, but the security deposit is almost always 11 months of rent.

In June 2021, the Union Cabinet approved the Model Tenancy Act, according to which the security amount should be a maximum of just two months’ rent for residential and six months for commercial properties.

Media reports said that the Karnataka government was planning to implement the Act. However, an official at the Karnataka Housing Board informed The Observer that the proposal of the Act is still under consideration. ayndrila.b@iijnm.org

Women hesitate to make BBMP testing wastewater, media reports said financial decisions Continued from page 1 conomics professor S.R. Keshawa of Bangalore University said half of the rise in the number of women’s accounts was a result of direct beneficiary transfer. This doesn’t mean financial independence as most of the women, even those who earn their own money, don’t have a say on how to spend money. In many homes, though the account is in the wife’s name, it is the husband who operates it.

With the feminization of agriculture, female–farmer suicides are not a part of the count of farmer suicidesas most lands are in the name of the husbands.

Many private banks are coming up with savings account schemes that target women.

The NFHS is a country-wide survey conducted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in collaboration with the International Institute of Population Sciences. According to the survey, an average of 8 percent rise was wit-

Continued from page 1 e share our lab results with the BBMP so they can take appropriate measures to control the spread in areas with higher positivity rate either by increasing vaccine coverage or by increasing testing. Till now, 0.43 is the maximum positivity rate that we have recorded. Mahadevapura had a higher number of cases than all the other zones.”

Wastewater testing has a bright future. It can be used to find 20 to 25 different kinds of viruses. Currently it is being implemented only in Bengaluru, he informed The Observer.

Four months ago, several media outlets reported that Bengaluru would be India’s first city to carry out wastewater surveillance for the novel coronavirus.

“First in India: Sewage in 45 Bengaluru wards to be tested for coronavirus clusters. The system will eventually cover over 75 percent of Bengaluru’s 90 lakh residents,” read the headline of a

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Rise in women’s accounts is due to direct beneficiary transfer | Credit: Kashish Sharma nessed in the number of women who worked in the past 12 months. A vast majority of women are still doing simple banking operations such as deposit and withdrawal of money.

Many private banks are coming up with savings account schemes that are dedicated to women.

Many women still do not have the autonomy to decide how to spend their money; even if they do, it is limited to the larger good of the woman’s family. kashish.s@iijnm

report in Deccan Herald, dated May 28. The report said the project had been launched in association with PCMH Restore Health and Wellness, which is a part of the Covid ActionCollab collective, supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Skoll Foundation.

Shan Venkat, the co-founder of PCMH Restore Health and Wellness said: “We will have a meeting with the BBMP chief commissioner every month where our findings will be discussed and appropriate decisions will be taken by the authorities.”

“We are happy to launch this model in Bengaluru, the first in India. Wastewater testing could be a cost-effective early warning system to assess the increase in Covid-19 cases before the number of official cases go up relative to the real number of cases.” said Rakesh Singh, Additional Chief Secretary, Urban Development Department, BBMP. chhavi.v@iijnm.org

3 This Day, That Year Steve Jobs, the cofounder of Apple who revolutionized personal computing died of a rare form of pancreatic cancer at the age of 56, on this day in 2011.

Quote of the day “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.”

-Mahatma Gandhi

Weather Maximum temp: 28° Celsius Minimum temp: 21° Celsius Precipitation: Nil Humidity: 60 per cent Wind speed: 11 kph Forecast: The maximum temperature will be 29° Celsius.

Twitterati Talk @sherryontopp If, by tomorrow, the Union Minister’s son behind the brutal murder of farmers is not arrested, and our leader @PriyankaGandhi being unlawfully arrested, fighting for farmers is not released, the Punjab Congress will march towards Lakhimpur Kheri. @narendramodi Results of the local body polls across Gujarat and Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation reaffirm the deep-rooted bond between the people of Gujarat and BJP. Gratitude to the people for repeatedly blessing us. Kudos to @BJP4Gujarat Karyakartas for working hard at the grassroots. @ANI These three farm laws should be repealed at the earliest and incidents like this (Lakhimpur Kheri) need to be stopped. I will discuss this issue with him (HM Amit Shah) in today’s meeting: Punjab CM Charanjit Singh Channi.

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The Observer Tuesday, October 5, 2021

NEW WATER BODY IN DOMLUR?

Election conundrum forces BJP to replace its CMs The country’s ruling party effected leadership changes in three states, two of which go to polls next year, writes Jinit Parmar.

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This view of 100 Feet Road at Domlur says much about the condition of the drainage system. Heavy rain on October 3 gave a tough time to Bengalureans. People carried children on their backs as potholes made it difficult for them to navigate flooded streets. Vehicles were seen submerged in drain water. I Credit: Anjali Kumari

Users flood Twitter as Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook go down for 6 hours globally Continued from Page 1

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Facebook has over 2 billion ac tive users globally, 400 million in India alone which is its largest market in the world.

he outage affected millions of users worldwide, severing communications with their loved ones.

Archana Raj, another student at IIJNM said: “I initially thought it was a mobile-data issue. I restarted my phone, and tried to use different accounts with no avail. I finally realised that Whatsapp and Instagram were down only the next morning.”

“We have confidence in these platforms. The fact that they are so intangible and can collapse at any moment really shook me,” said Varnika Thakur, a student at the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media, Bangaluru.

Users fromthe platforms Instagram and Facebook flooded Twitter as the social media platforms went down worldwide.

Facebook saw its shares fall 4.9 percent on Monday, wiping nearly $7 billion from Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth. arshreet.s@iijnm.org

Team Observer

Quiz answers 8) Fear of open spaces 7) Uruguay 6) Bernard Tapie 5) Switzerland 4) Israel and Jordan 3) Samuel Johnson 2) King Henry VIII 1) Sweden

Editor- Arshreet Singh Reporters- Arshreet Singh, Anwesha Singh, Ayndrila Banerjee, Chhavi Vohra, Kashish Sharma Copy Editors- Arshreet Singh, Ayndrila Banerjee, Chhavi Vohra, Kashish Sharma Page Layout- Anwesha Singh, Ayndrila Banerjee, Chhavi Vohra, Kashish Sharma Photo Editor- Arshreet Singh, Chhavi Vohra, Ayndrila Banerjee, Kahish Sharma, Anwesha Singh, Anjali Kumari Supplement- Jinit Paramar.

huffling and reshuffling chief ministers seems to be currently high on BJPs todo list. It began in March 2021 when Uttarakhand witnessed a change in its top leadership.

That was just the beginning of a pattern. The party’s top brass was not happy with their veteran Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa in Karnataka either. He too was asked to step down. Another shocker came when Vijay Rupani resigned as the Chief Minister of Gujarat.

With Gujarat and Uttarakhand going to polls next year, BJP appears to be making a statement.

Uttarakhand’s story begins with the stepping down of Trivendra Singh Rawat, which was in the making for some time. Lawmakers in Uttarakhand wrote to the party’s central leadership against Rawat’s style of functioning, accusing him of not listening to them. Besides, Rawat had already become highly unpopular among the MLAs and party workers, who found him unresponsive to their concerns.

A vital issue that may have accelerated Rawat's resignation was his stance on the Kumbh festival that no one should be stopped in name of covid.19.

Some Uttarakhand cabinet ministers wanted the state to host a “bhavya", or grand, Mahakumbh with minimal Covid19 restrictions in place. Rawat, however, insisted on a “pratikatmak", or symbolic, festival. All of this brought in a new CM to the state of Uttarakhand.

In this fall of the CMs in BJP-ruled states, one could see a change in the party’s political style I Courtesy: Indian Express

The change in leadership in Karnataka, was prompted by attacks on B.S. Yediyurappa by BJP leaders over corruption allegations.The BJP high command replaced Yediyurappa, a four-time chief minister, with Basavaraj Bommai, anPolitics Supplement other Lingayat, to avoid The new Chief Minister, Tirath antagonizing the powerSingh Rawat, an RSS man with ful community. an ABVP background, facilitated a ‘grand’ Mahakumbh. Within three days of his swearing-in, Tirath, who was elected to the Lok Sabha from Garhwal in the 2019 parliamentary elections, announced the waiver of COVID-negative certificates for devotees coming to the Mahakumbh. His short tenure of four months was riddled with controversy. Hence, the high command played safe by replacing him with Pushkar Singh Dhami as the Chief Minister.

The change of leadership in Karnataka was in the realm of rumour for more than a year.

BJP veteran Yediyurappa, had to lay down office half way into his fourth term as Chief Minister. Incidentally, he has never enjoyed a full-term in the top post. His political career was riddled with corruption cases, and in recent times some BJP leaders— especially MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal, Tourism Minister CP Yogesh-

war, and legislative council member AH Vishwanath —have attacked him consistently over corruption allegations. They also accused him of permitting his son Vijayendra to cause interfere nce in the government.

Fearing a backlash against the BJP from Yediyurappa’s Lingayat community — which forms the backbone of the party’s base, especially in North Karnataka — the BJP high command ensured that the new Chief Minister was also a Lingayat to gain the favour of the Lingayat community.

The stakes in Gujarat, which has seen over two decades of BJP rule, is higher. For one, it is the Prime Minister’s state. Any slip-up could well be seen as a referendum by the Opposition, for the entire country.

With the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) eager to put up a fight, the BJP pulled out its

In Gujarat , Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state, the BJP high command’s task to replace chief minister Vijay Rupani was relatively easy. The party does not want to antagonize the Patidars in a state it has ruled for more than two decades. trump card by bringing in a Patidar leader, Bhupendra Patel.

Patidars, who want to be included in the OBC category, are a dominant group in Gujarat.

They were BJP’s core support group, but have drifted away slowly in the last few years.

Also, Rupani’s removal became relatively easy after the Gujarat High Court noted the state’s mismanagement of the covid-19 pandemic. The declining popularity of Rupani among BJP workers also helped.

The high command’s active involvement in changing the leadership in the three States goes to show that preparations for the next Assembly elections are well underway. With the Centre receiving much flak over the state of the economy and its handling of the pandemic, the fear of voters moving away from the BJP in these crucial states is a real fear for the party’s high command. One can only expect to see more caste equations coming into play in the near future. jinit.p@iijnm.org