Win or lose, Gujarat can never count out Modi

LONELY CRUSADOR: Modi's immediate destination maybe Gandhi Nagar, but his final frontier is New Delhi.

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New Delhi: It’s less than 24 hours to go to find out who will win the battle for Gujarat and pulses are racing all the way from Gandhi Nagar to Delhi.

In the party that started the cult of rath yatras, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi may have crisscrossed the length and breadth of the state in his rath over the last one month, but his journey is still not over.

His immediate destination maybe Gandhi Nagar, but his final frontier clearly is New Delhi and that is one reason why he has linked Gujarati Asmita to national security.

“Why are you so scared to discuss terrorism? Shouldn’t India and the other countries discuss this problem? There are lakhs of people dying due to terrorism. Our forces are losing soldiers,” Modi had told CNN-IBN during his campaigning.

It is through this tough talk that Modi has managed to convert himself from being a simple pracharak to almost a cult figure as he stresses on his macho image by pointing to his chappan ki chaati or 56-inch chest.

It’s a point, which has already been noted by heavyweights in Delhi, and the one BJP leader who should feel threatened by Moditva is LK Advani. He knows that if Modi wins, his personal stature could get reduced within the Sangh Parivar. And which is one reason why he proclaimed himself to be the prime ministerial candidate on the eve of Gujarat polls.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also seems to believe that Advani is a worried man today. “Even the BJP is worried that Modi might win. That’s the reason why Advani declared himself to be the PM candidate,” he said.

So, could it be a Rahul Gandhi-Narendra Modi face off five years from now?

It’s a realistic scenario if Modi wins on Sunday. It could lead to a total consolidation of the secular space as well. Either ways, the battle will revolve around only one man.

But if Modi loses, the BJP will have a larger problem. It will have to revisit the definition of Hindutva and put on a totally different mask from being the party that got catapulted on the national political stage courtesy the Ram Mandir agitation and rath yatras to a party that will have to look for a different leader and different political tools.