Moditva146;s moment

In his first public comments after the verdict, Narendra Modi included his party8217;s central leadership, the BJP8217;s karyakartas and all the people of Gujarat, in his moment of triumph. In a piquant way, that victor8217;s gesture underlined both the scale and distinctive character of Modi8217;s win. He has won votes across the state on the strength of a political appeal that scorned the traditional support structures that generally power the electoral bid of a regional leader in a national party. The BJP8217;s high command was virtually irrelevant to Modi8217;s campaign. So were vast sections of the local BJP and other sangh parivar outfits, including the RSS and VHP. Modi also ran on a platform that unabashedly addressed the Gujarati as Hindu, made no pretence of speaking to Gujarat8217;s minority Muslim community. What Modi did was to combine his government8217;s achievements on the development front with an insistent play on Hindu anxieties and stamp the mix with a strong signature style. It has worked for him, returning him to power for the second time, emphatically so.

But will it work for his party? Modi8217;s victory in Gujarat is bound to give the Advani-led BJP at the Centre a sobering moment of pause amid the celebrations. Advani may feel a fleeting sense of vindication 8212; he has been known to support Modi against his opposition in the party and he has himself run foul of the RSS 8212; but the party-parivar equation has been tinged with a brand new uncertainty. Modi8217;s successful effort to carve a political strategy that vaults over, even disrespects, the collective wisdom and diktat of the old men in Nagpur, is an unprecedented phenomenon. It will take some time and a lot of tact for sections of the parivar to cope with this audacious assertion of their dispensability. For the BJP high command, too, it will be a challenge to deal with a leader whose persona is likely to strain beyond the state8217;s boundaries. A leader, moreover, whose patented political style is abrasively at odds with the party8217;s attempt to enhance its coalition-friendliness at the Centre.

For the Congress, this is a moment of truth. It had no leader in Gujarat to take on Modi. It had no big idea either. The party hoped that the election would localise and caste-ise itself to its advantage. It hoped, most of all, that the BJP8217;s rebels would fight the BJP. The Congress8217;s abject performance against the incumbent must bring home to it the fact that once the political initiative is lost, there is no alternative to the hard work of politics.