Governor Vajubhai Vala’s decision to invite the BJP to form the government in Karnataka would have surprised neither the BJP nor the Congress in his home state, Gujarat. So what if the BJP was eight MLAs short? “For Vajubhai, the party’s diktat is final; he never questions it,” Raju Dhruv, the BJP’s spokesperson for the Saurashtra region, says. “I remember his reaction when some of us went to him in 1996 and broke the news that he may have to quit as the all-important finance and revenue minister. He was absolutely cool and all-smiles like always. He told us that he would sincerely perform whatever role the party assigned him.”

The sense of loyalty and humour with which Vala is known to negotiate difficult situations is folklore in Gujarat. Vala was made the Gujarat BJP president in 1996—a period of intense internal squabbling within the party. He did not fuss even when asked to become Speaker after having been a Cabinet minister for years. “It was Vajubhai who called up Narendra Modi in 2002 offering him his constituency, Rajkot II, when Haren Pandya refused to vacate his Ellis Bridge seat [to let Modi, appointed CM in October 2001, contest his first election and join the state Assembly],” recalls Kirit Pathak, a veteran RSS activist and Deputy Registrar at the Saurashtra University in Rajkot. “Welcoming Modi, Vala told him that Rajkot II was a safe seat for the BJP, not for any individual.”

Between 1975 and 2014, when he was appointed Governor by the Modi government, Vala had served as a legislator for seven terms, been a councillor with the Rajkot Municipal Corporation thrice, Rajkot Mayor five times and had also headed the cash-rich Rajkot Nagrik District Cooperative Bank as chairman. “They may make him a minister, the state party president or the governor, he would never say no or ask for more,” says Pathak. “He has never sought any of this.” 

For Vala, nothing is bigger than loyalty to the party, affirms Vallabh Kathiria, the former Rajkot MP and Union minister. “He knows he will be a zero without the party and he ensures he does not rub anyone on the wrong side,” Kathiria says. “He has no dedicated fan following per se, although scores of party workers and leaders are on good terms with him.”

Given this background, the decision he took in Karnataka, favouring the BJP, is hardly surprising.

When he was in the [Gujarat] government, Vala had a way of disguising his ‘no’ with a ‘yes’. Many who came to him seeking favours on government-related work would return empty-handed without even realising it.

“Many government works required his approval as the finance minister,” a senior minister in the Gujarat government tells Newslaundry. “Sometimes when we were unable to turn down certain influential people, we would send them to Vajubhai. He would deftly divert the subject, and make the visitors laugh uncontrollably to such an extent that they would simply forget why they were meeting him.”

That Vala and laughter go hand in hand is a common refrain in Gujarat. Be it in jail, when he was imprisoned during the 1975 Emergency, as a finance minister who presented the state Budget on 12 occasions, or as Speaker of the state Assembly, there would always be peels of laughter when he was around. 

His way with banter, in the corridors of power or on the streets of his hometown Rajkot, is the stuff of legend. It did not matter if he was a senior minister or now that he is the Governor, he stops by anywhere for a cup of tea with old-timers and cracks jokes.

“We have never seen him with the trappings of a security protocol,” Pathak says. “He could be found driving a scooter even when was a senior minister. He used to own a yellow ‘Suvega’ moped before the days of Luna and would be riding around town on it.”

Vajubhai’s deep interest in folk literature has helped him hone his sense of humour and instant wit, says senior Rajkot-based Gujarati journalist Jagdish Acharya. “After the BJP formed its first government in Gujarat in 1995, Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil remarked that the Lotus may have bloomed but there was no fragrance,” Acharya recalls. “Vala’s retort was: ‘You would need a nose to feel the fragrance, yours has been slit by us (Gujarati proverb ‘naak kapai javu’ means loss of prestige).”

Whether addressing the state Assembly, a public function or a political rally, Vala’s style remained the same, and people never got bored. “Vajubhai was an MLA for seven straight terms despite the fact that Karadiya Rajputs make up for only 4,000 voters in the Rajkot II (now Rajkot West) constituency. The seat is dominated by other castes. But he would always say, ‘I don’t have to worry about the outcome of the election, let my opponent be concerned,’” Pathak says. 

Pathak recalls a time when a newspaper group had organised a competition of old, forgotten street games in Rajkot. “Valubhai not only played with great enthusiasm,” he says, “he could also be seen screaming and whistling and shouting like a child. All of us laughed, but it was all natural for Vajubhai.”

He may appear very casual and nonchalant about everything, but he is an able administrator and, through his sense of humour, ensures he does only what he wants to do, Kirit Pathak points out.

“At the same time, he is never overly serious and concerned about anything. Kaam hua toh thik, nahi hua toh bhi thik (it is okay if the work gets done, it is okay even if it doesn’t),” Kathiria says.

In 1996, then Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda—the father of HD Kumaraswamy, the Congress-JDS alliance’s CM candidate in Karnataka today—dismissed the Gujarat Government in 1996. Vala was the state BJP president then and Suresh Mehta was the chief minister. “He is not vengeful of anyone or anything,” Kathiria says. “He has never made enemies and does not have any negative feelings about anyone. Vajubhai would say ‘char dai ne gayo chhey, lai ne toh nathi gayo ne (even if it is abuses, he has given them, not taken away anything from us),” he says.

Political enemies are not personal enemies for Vala apparently. A senior BJP functionary in Rajkot recollects a case of bank fraud involving three senior local Congress leaders. “He could have got Jayantibhai Kundaliya, chairman of Rajkot Commercial Cooperative Bank chairman, and office-bearers Ashwin Mehta and Mansukh Joshi arrested in a case of Rs 5 crore bank fraud in 2007.” But Vala helped them through the crisis, the BJP worker says. “Vajubhai told us: ‘So what if they are from the Congress, we must get them out since it involves the money of the bank’s depositors.’ Political enemies are not personal enemies, he would say.”

Someone who has a solution for every problem, Vajubhai acquired the sobriquet of pani-wala Mayor for solving the severe water crisis in Rajkot during the drought of the mid-eighties. People still remember how he, as the Mayor, got a train full of water to come to the city when all other options had been exhausted. ‘Paani-wala’ in Gujarati also means a gutsy person.