By Law Kumar Mishra
In the last six weeks, the Congress lost its three top icons that include Ahmad Patel, Motilal Vora and Madhav Singh Solanki.
Solanki passed away on Saturday morning. He and Patel hailed from Gujarat.
Madhav Singh Solanki, a member of the Koli caste (of which the President of India, Ramnath Kovind also belongs) was considered the architect of caste based political alliance in Gujarat.
The four time Chief Minister of Gujarat who was also external affairs minister, floated the KHAM (kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi and Muslim) alliance against the till then upper caste dominated politics of Brahmins, Baniyas and Patels.
Lalu Prasad and Nitish Numar tried to empower the backward castes much later, but Solanki made the beginning successfully in 1980 when he led the Congress to an astounding victory bagging 141 out of 182 seats in Gujarat assembly elections. He repeated it in the 1989 elections, when Congress won 149 out of 182 seats.
After the successful experiment of KHAM that empowered the marginalised backward castes in the state, those hit hard by it switched their loyalty to BJP. Patels, Baniyas and Brahmins joined hands against the Congress that helped the BJP to gain ground in Gujarat and come to power with the alliance of Kolis too.
Solanki was one of the last surviving generations of leaders who had interest in literature and books. He was a voracious reader and fond of newly published books in English too. He once told the author at Gujarat Bhawan in New Delhi, Indira Gandhi too liked his habit of reading latest books and claimed both Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi appreciated his quotes from Abraham Lincon to Napoleon’s biographies extensively to fortify his arguments on “sexuality and creativity” too. He made these claims in presence of a woman Congress leader of Gujarat, who later became Governor of a Southern Indian state.
He was fond of beauty in all respects and was himself considered a glamorous politician, which was appreciated by the Prime Ministers too. He was a media friendly person in the age when there was no TV channel. He used to write for a Gujarati daily from Gandhinagar.
The anti-reservations (Anamat andolan) agitations once cost him his chair. He faced resistance from the then powerful Congress leaders-Jeenabhai Darji and Sanat Mehta, but never spoke ill of his rivals even in private conversations.
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Solanki helped industrialization of the state by allowing new industries on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai rail route, getting new ports set up in Kutch and facilitated transfer of government land to private industries by changing the land use conversion laws.
He will be remembered for launching the Mid-day meal scheme for the school going children in Gujarat, which other states followed.
When there was no state helicopter or state aircraft with the Gujarat government, Solanki travelled even far off places like Lakahpat in Kutch region by road, Ambassador was the popular mode. During the assembly elections, he was the real “butcher” as he used to deny tickets to even his trusted colleagues, only because their winnability was suspected.
With his death, Gujarat lost a politician of Letters and Lover of Beauty.
(The author is a senior journalist with vast experience in the state of Gujarat)
