After trying its dirty-tricks department on Patidar leader, the intransigent enfant terrible Hardik Patel with an unproven sex video, the shaky BJP in Gujarat is now training its crosshairs on OBC leader Alpesh Thakore, because the latter is now going great guns into campaigning for the Congress. It may be recalled that the OBCs have always been the defining – if not the deciding – factor in Gujarat polls. They together comprise 40 per cent of the electorate. Of that, the Thakores themselves represent 20 per cent of the voting populace. They are spread across north and central Gujarat villages. There was a time when they were the proud soldiers of the Gujarat’s various princely states. But with the lapse of the erstwhile princely states, the latter had to go settle into farming. The problem was that since generations, the community had no farm land to their names and thus had to settle down as marginal share croppers or landless labourers. A majority of the young people of the community had no jobs. Thus it is that when Alpesh came into the picture, he realised that this was a dismal scenario and launched his Thakore Sena, whose volunteers are now running institutes and coaching classes for vocational training so that the Thakore youth can improved their lives. In 2016, Thakore formed a common platform to unite the OBCs, scheduled castes and scheduled tribe communities of the state. To witness, these together form roughly 70 per cent of the Gujarat electorate. There was a time when this forum was challenging Hardik Pate’s Patidar movement. However in the fast changing electoral scenario in the state, with Patel, Mevani and Thakore seem to have joined their hands to defeat the BJP, this has become a massive hangover for BJP after the massive highs of recent times.