Dhaval and his brother were unable to make ends meet as farmers, so he left his chaar bhiga zameen and came to the city, where he works an auto-driver. Even here, he says the police doesn’t spare him till he coughs up Rs 300-500 each time he’s caught on some pretext. “It’s time for change,” he says.

The Thakor Sena conducted an online, phone and door-to-door survey earlier this year to determine which political party Alpesh should join. According to his aides, around 25 lakh people said he should join the Congress, while only 1.6 lakh people said the BJP would be a good fit for him.

Dhaval is among the thousands of sainiks seen waving the red flag of the Gujarat Kshatriya Thakor Sena. The flag bears an uncanny resemblance to Leo, the Lion — the mascot for the Hollywood film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.