Here are the latest developments:
Attacking the Congress at his rally in Surendranagar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, "If you don't have democracy at your own home (party), how can you practise it in the country?" The reference was to the coming Congress internal polls, in which Rahul Gandhi is expected to take over the party's reins from his mother and party president Sonia Gandhi.
PM Modi also referred to Shehzad Poonawalla, the Congress leader who alleged rigging in the organisational elections and said, "you have done a brave thing".
In Bharuch, where the BJP has four of the five seats, the Prime Minister spoke of development. "Bharuch along with Kutch are areas "with significant Muslim populations," he said. "If you see the districts which developed rapidly under the BJP tenure in Gujarat, the names of these two districts figure prominently," he added.
Tomorrow, PM Modi is scheduled to address rallies at Dharampur in Valsad, followed by Bhavnagar and Junagadh, and then Jamnagar in Saurashtra. The seven rallies have been pitched by the ruling BJP as "Vikas Rallies". Eighty-nine seats of south Gujarat and Saurashtra vote in the first phase of the assembly polls on Saturday.
The BJP won 28 of the 35 seats in South Gujarat in 2012. But the party is seen as worried over the challenge posed by the Patidar community, traditional BJP voters who have turned against the state government. The vast Saurashtra region has large sections of the Patidars who have been demanding quota in jobs and education.
The leader of Patidar agitation, 24-year-old Hardik Patel, has vowed to make the ruling party pay for refusing to support their demand. He is asking the community to support the Congress, which has promised quota to Patidars under the Other Backward Classes reservation if it comes to power.
Today, as the PM addressed crowds in Bharuch, Hardik Patel launched a massive roadshow in Surat, just 70 km away, where he launched a massive agitation two years ago. "The BJP will be wiped out," Mr Patel told NDTV.
Surat, Gujarat's commercial capital and its second largest city, is politically high-profile. In 2012, BJP won 15 of Surat's 16 seats, one went to Congress. In December 2015 -- a few months after Hardik Patel started his quota agitation -- the Congress more than doubled its seats in the civic elections, although the BJP won the corporation.
Privately, some leaders of the BJP have expressed concern about the impact of the notes ban and the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax on small traders who comprise a huge section of the population. In his rallies, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi has criticized both in scathing terms.
Surat's large non-Gujarati population, mainly textile traders and workers from UP, Bihar and Rajasthan who control the power-loom industry, are also seen as being divided over supporting the ruling party. The migrants comprise nearly 26% of Surat's 44.26 lakh population.
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