For the sixth consecutive time, the BJP has won Gujarat and the man of the moment is again Prime Minister Narendra Modi, not chief minister Vijay Rupani, not BJP state president Jitu Vaghani.
The prime minister left no stone unturned in campaigning across the state, more as a top BJP leader and less like a prime minister. At stake, he said, was the Gujarat asmita, Gujarati pride, and he implicitly asked the voters to forgive the BJP for all the ills of the last year, whether rural distress or urban desolation as a result of demonetisation and GST trial by error.
The voters seem to have listened to their PM, although they have also given him a warning not to take them for granted. The BJP’s tally has come down from 117 seats to 107 seats (these are still leads), while the Congress tally has gone up from 61 to 74 (these are still leads).
Clearly, BJP president Amit Shah’s boast that the party will win 150 seats has not materialised. In that sense, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, along with his regional allies Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakore and Jignesh Mevani, has shown the BJP that this is a new Congress and it will play the role of a spirited Opposition. As the winter session of Parliament begins today, fireworks will be expected.
But the day belongs to the prime minister – indeed, he has shown, not only that there is no other leader in the country who can come close to him by any stretch of the imagination, but also that there is no other leader in the BJP who can be remotely seen to be his equal, even a co-comrade of sorts.