2014: The Election That Changed India Read Online Free PDF Page A

was an air of
great expectancy at the BJP party headquarters in Khanpur in Ahmedabad. By the evening, it was
becoming clearer that the BJP was on its way to a famous win. The party eventually won a two-thirds
majority with 121 of the 182 seats. The leaders were cheered as they entered the party office.
Keshubhai Patel was the man anointed as chief minister; other senior leaders like Shankersinh
Vaghela and Kashiram Rana all shared traditional Gujarati sweets and
farsan
. In a corner
was Modi, the man who had scripted the success by managing the election campaign down to the last
detail. The arc lights were on the BJP’s other senior leaders, but I remember an emotional
Modi telling me on camera that ‘this is the happiest moment in my life’. The almost
anonymous campaign manager seemed to sublimate himself to his party with the fierce loyalty of the
karyakarta.
    On 19 March 1995, Keshubhai Patel was sworn in as
the first BJP chief minister of Gujarat at a function in Gandhinagar. Again, Modi wasn’t the
focus, but already the whispers in party circles projected him as the ‘super-chief
minister’. The sweet smell of success,though, would quickly evaporate.
The Sangh Parivar in Gujarat became the Hindu Divided Parivar and the party with a difference began
to weaken because of internal differences. By October that year, a rebellion within the BJP led by
Vaghela forced Keshubhai to resign. A compromise formula was evolved—Suresh Mehta was made the
chief minister of Gujarat, and Modi, who was accused by his detractors of fomenting the politics of
divide and rule in the state, was packed off to north India as the national secretary in charge of
Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.
    These were Modi’s years in political
vanvas
(exile). He could have dived into his new challenge, but his heart was always in
Gujarat. ‘He still wants to be the chief minister of Gujarat one day, that is his ultimate
ambition,’ a common friend told me on more than one occasion. If that was his final
destination, Modi kept it well concealed. Once ensconced in Delhi, Modi liked to speak out on
‘national’ issues. Private television was just beginning to find its voice and political
debates on television had just begun to take off. Modi, as an articulate speaker in Hindi, was
ideally suited as a political guest for prime-time politics on TV.
    Modi took to television rather well at that time in
the late 1990s. I recall two telling instances. Once I was anchoring a 10 p.m. show called
Newshour
on NDTV with Arnab Goswami. (Arnab would later anchor a similarly named prime-time
show on Times Now with great success.) At about 8.30 p.m., our scheduled BJP guest, Vijay Kumar
Malhotra, dropped out. We were desperate for a replacement. I said I knew one person in Delhi who
might oblige us at this late hour. I rang up Modi and spoke to him in Gujarati (I have always
believed that a way to a person’s heart is to speak to them in their mother tongue, a tactic
that every reporter learns while trying to charm the power food chain from VIPs down to their PAs
and PSs).
    ‘Aavee jao, Narendrabhai, tamhari zarrorat
chhe’
(Please come, Narendrabhai, we need you). Modi hemmed and hawed for all of sixty
seconds and then said he was ready to appear on our show but didn’t have a car. Modi at the
time lived in 9, Ashoka Road, next to the BJP office along with other pracharaks. I asked him to
take a taxiand promised that we would reimburse him. Arnab and I sweated in
anticipation as the countdown began for 10 p.m. With minutes to go, there was still no sign of Modi.
With about five minutes left to on-air, with producers already yelling ‘stand by’ in my
ear, a panting Modi came scurrying into the studio, crying out, ‘Rajdeep, I have come, I have
come!’ He was fully aware he was only a last-minute replacement but so unwilling was he to
give up a chance at a TV appearance, he made sure he showed up, even at the eleventh hour. As far as
Arnab and I were