Decade of 90s has seen a rise of the BJP in the National politics as well as Gujarat elections riding on the wave of Hindutva politics, created by Ratha Yatra in the 1990.
Narendra Modi was the incharge of the Gujarat from that time till 2002. He has organised and led the Ratha Yatra in Gujarat to pave a way for the Gujarat BJP to gain the power in the state.
The BJP organised a strategy to reap in the anti-congress sentiments of Patidars, Brahmans, who were protesting and demanding reservations in education and government jobs in their favour apart from the traditional formula to organise Kshatriyas (Thakors), Harijan, Adivasis and Dalit.
This strategy worked in party’s favour and in the assembly election of 1995 the BJP under the leadership of Kesubhai patel has won their first election.
What was the Modi and Shah strategy to gain support for the BJP in 90s?
After the BJP came in the power in 1995 , Modi and Shah has worked together to destroy the Congress leadership in the rural areas. They employed a strategy to find the second most influential leader in every village and manage all of them to join the BJP. By this way they created a network of 8,000 influential leaders.
Modi was general secretary of the BJP from the early 1990s. He convinced Patel to appoint Shah as the Chairman of the Gujarat State Financial Corporation, a public sector financial institution which finances small and medium-scale enterprises.
Modi and Shah used the same strategy to reduce Congress’ influence over powerful cooperatives of the state, which play an important role in the economy of state.
In 1999, Amit Shah was elected as Chairman of the richest District Co-operative Bank of Ahmedabad in Gujarat.