The political climate in Gujarat has intensified as the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has launched a scathing attack on Congress MLA Jignesh Mevani. The ruling party has demanded a public apology from him and announced a series of statewide protests, alleging that his recent comments insulted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the OBC community.
The Core of the Controversy
The controversy erupted following a public meeting addressed by Mevani in Patan district on Monday, December 2, 2025. Mevani, a working president of the Gujarat Congress, has been a prominent figure in the party's ongoing 'Jan Akrosh' Rally in north Gujarat, which began on November 21. The rally aims to highlight public grievances, with Mevani frequently targeting the state government over the "menace of liquor and drugs."
On Tuesday, December 3, Gautam Gediya, the president of the Gujarat BJP's Scheduled Caste Morcho, held a press conference in Gandhinagar to condemn Mevani's language. Gediya accused the Congress MLA of using derogatory remarks while referring to PM Modi, who belongs to an Other Backward Class (OBC) community.
"The Congress is unable to digest the personality of (Prime Minister) Narendrabhai (Modi) who hails from the OBC community, that too from a backward and small community," Gediya stated. He framed the alleged insult as an attack on the entire OBC community, the people of north Gujarat, and the Prime Minister's mother, declaring it intolerable.
BJP's Demands and Planned Agitation
In a strongly-worded statement, the BJP laid out its demands and course of action. "On behalf of BJP, I demand that as you (Mevani) have insulted the Prime Minister and his mother, you should apologise for that," Gediya said. He announced that the Scheduled Caste Morcho and other party leaders would organize protest programs across every district of Gujarat until Mevani tenders an apology.
Shifting the focus to Mevani's performance as an MLA, Gediya questioned the developmental work in his Vadgam assembly constituency. He accused Mevani of running a "shop of hatred (nafrat ni dukan)" instead of focusing on progress. Furthermore, Gediya cited 27 cases of alleged atrocities on Dalits in Vadgam and challenged Mevani to disclose how many affected families he had personally visited.
When questioned about his own morcho's actions on Dalit issues, Gediya claimed they engaged in "advocacy" when required and pointed out that in recent incidents, state ministers had directly visited victims to ensure justice.
Congress Strikes Back with Counter-Questions
The Gujarat Congress responded swiftly and sharply to the BJP's allegations. Hitendra Pithadiya, chairman of the state Congress's SC department, questioned the timing and intent of Gediya's press conference. In a social media post in Gujarati, Pithadiya asked why the press conference was held with such urgency.
He posed a critical counter-question to the BJP's SC Morcho: "In the BJP rule of the past three decades, why did this Morcho not speak anything at the time of atrocities on Dalits and on black trade of narcotic substances?"
Pithadiya escalated the confrontation by releasing a list of 20 pointed questions for Gautam Gediya. These questions encompassed long-standing issues concerning the Dalit community, the use of uncontrolled language by senior BJP leaders, and the illegal narcotics trade that is allegedly ruining the youth of Gujarat. This move reframes the debate around the BJP's own record on the very issues it is accusing Mevani of neglecting.
The exchange marks a significant escalation in political rhetoric in Gujarat, setting the stage for a prolonged confrontation between the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress, with Dalit and OBC communities at the center of the discourse.
