Now with the results announced, cat is out of the bag as far as Gujarat election is concerned. The two phases of elections in Gujarat having been completed, which witnessed lot of mudslinging, instead of development as the core issue. Moreover Mr Aiyyar’s statement provided a golden opportunity to the ruling party, to garner public sympathy. For Congress it has turned out to be a good battle ground. I’m sure the whole campaign has given Rahul, a different identity, his popularity has definitely increased, and he has emerged as confident leader. As a matter of fact I have been following the electioneering process, that started from day one, both in print and electronic media, during the Gujarat campaign, and the ruling party didn’t miss a chance to polarise Hindu vote bank, for example Rahul’s “temple visit” right from his signing in the register,etc, were blown out of proportions,.

At the outset, the campaign had ended, amidst acrimony and vicious mudslinging, while the main issues concerning people were pushed to the backburner and accusations occupied the center stage. For Congress it heralds a new era under Rahul, in full scale with Mrs Sonia seen no nowhere around. There seems to be a fundamental change in the attitude, approach, and even the agenda of the party. I haven’t seen any appeasement of minorities, and the party, has come nearer to Hindus. Rahul’s temple visits, the TILAK on his forehead, total absence of any reference to Gujarat’s 2002 riots, shows total turn around, in approach. In a state Like Gujarat it must be understood that it can’t come to power by alienating majority community while for BJP it was Modi and Modi alone all the way. His entire cabinet, their MPs, including the PM were totally devoted and surprisingly PM did campaign like a CM of Gujarat, which no other PM right from Nehru to Rajeev, no one did campaign like this in case of a state election, they used to address one or two important public meetings, and rest will be taken care by local CM and more so PM had studiously avoided any reference to VIKAS though it is their own party in power for the last 22 years. The important outcome of Gujarat election, for AmitShah and PM, needs no reiteration. It is their home state and, they are expected to know what the people of Gujarat want, more than anybody else.   Congress has been in shambles in that state for the last more than two decades. No organisational structure, neither gross root level leader ship nor CM’s face, i was told by one of my close old friends from Mumbai, that until 3 months ago, it was just an election, that had to be gone through, to fulfill the constitutional obligation, but that perception had changed very suddenly. Congress which had been found wanting in taking on the government for over three years have suddenly turned very active, on social media, mastering art that Modi’s team was good at and even doing slightly better. Simultaneously Rahul had had a makeover. No more the butt of jokes he was asking the right questions at the right time, and  during the campaign he had repeatedly stated that he would not make any personal accusations against Modi while Modi did the other way throughout. I was surprised to note and find that in one place in Ahmedabad, he the incoming Congress President addressed a press conference for the first time, which Modi could never do it in last 46 months, wherein he said he wants to change the discourse of politics as it has become nasty and ugly, while saying that he wanted politics of love and compassion whereas Modi’s campaign was only about himself, Congress, and Rahul and his visits to temples has done some good for the Congress to pull all anti Modi forces, though what kind of damage Hardik Patel can do to BJP will only be known on Monday. As a matter of fact, the election battle in Gujarat were fought on playing fields of Pakistan to reincarnate Indian nationalism. As all of us had seen  Manishankar Aiyar on Dec 6th hosted a dinner in his house, for the visiting Ex-Foreign Minister of Pakistan Mr Kasuri a fellow Oxonian and next day he shared a common platform to discuss Indo-Pakistan relations wherein carelessly Aiyar referred to Modi as ‘Neech Aadmi’ , which made BJP to empty its barrels against Aiyar. Though he stayed on his feet, but Rahul ordered him to apologise to Modi, and took swift action to suspend him from party’s primary membership, but even then it was claimed that the dinner was conspiracy to subvert the elections of Gujarat and remember the members present were former Army Chief Deepak Kapoor, former foreign minister Natwarsingh, former diplomats Salman Haider, Raghavan, Sharat Sabharwal, ShankarBajpai, ChinmayGharekhan Former PM Manmohan Singh and former VP Ansari. Can we call these above dignitaries as conspirators?

 Exit polls conducted by various polling agencies have predicted that BJP would retain Gujarat with a reduced margin in 182 member Assembly, and one of them even predicted a sweep, and if the projections are correct, that means the campaign of BJP led by Modi triumphed over the Congress yet again and the result will surely have an effect on the future of our economy, and 2019 general elections. Though all exit polls favour the ruling party, Congress and Rahul gave Shah and his team a run for their money. But to me it appears, even though BJP wins, all the reforms may stop now, and Modi may take few leaves from Indira’s socialism to repackage them as the campaign has fully exposed the so-called Gujarat model and I’m sure this campaign game of invoking Pakistan will not work elsewhere. To me it appears, raising Pakistani, bogey PM pictured in poor light. Some of friends may not agree with my view, his speeches were like an astute aspirant of CM post, rather than PM of a nation. Infact, with having NIA, IB, CBI, at his disposal, he could have taken action, but try to woo the voters with such canards, will stand him in very low esteem. Labeling opponents as anti nationals, and stifling the voice of dissent, one may try to score political brownie points. But the fact of the matter is, BJP’s much touted Gujarati model has taken back seat, while the political slugfest only came to the fore. One should remember that success is not permanent and failure is not final in the game of politics. Airing out such baseless allegations against the former PM who is known for his impeccable integrity, is stooping too low to win just a state election.