The candidates who failed to make the grade this time may pray for better luck next time. Maharana Pratap of Chittor had lost many battles, including Haldi Ghati before reorganising his army and raising their morale, thanks to the open purse policy of the great patriot Bhamashah who gave to the Maharana millions of rupees that he had earned. Maharana Pratap had a great sense of military achievement before he breathed his last. Indeed a good consolation to the loser.

The winning candidate would need no lessons in history as he himself is creating history by entering a unique Gujarat Assembly where every member from the winning party of the Bhartiya Janata Party will be a Hindu as no Muslim member has been given a ticket.

Commoners crowned him king

Narendra Modi is himself one of the masses and not of the rich class or a political oligarchy. He rose from the rags but never made riches for his bank balance or for that of his kith and kin. His brother is still a primary school teacher and rides a bicycle to the place of work. Narendra bhai is a bachelor and, therefore, no member of the Sasural pesters him for a favour. Narendra Modi lives, breathes, sleeps and wakes up thinking of six crore Gujaratis who form his family and the core group. No wonder he is appreciated and praised by one and all; be it a hawker or a peddler or a millionaire who made his millions in the last decade or so when Modi has been at the helm of affairs.

Going through columns of pro-Modi and anti-Modi articles uploaded on Rediffmail.com, I came across an interesting sentence, “ Allah, Modi ka bhala kare”.( May God bless Modi). The man who spoke eloquently about Narendra Modi identified himself as Ashrafbhai Pathan from Sanand, near Ahmedabad. In the chorus of praise of Modi, the voices were of both Hindus and Muslims. What about the charges leveled against the incumbent Chief Minister of being a diehard RSS pracharak and an anti-Muslim man to his finger tips, asked someone in the growing crowd. Don’t believe the canard, said Ashrafbhai Pathan who has made money since Modi invited TATA to make Nano in Gujarat. The beneficiaries of this commercial project are both Hindus and Muslims.

“MAUT KA SAUDAGAR”, that was the adjective Sonia Gandhi had used for Narendra Modi in her last campaign in Gujarat five years ago. And she had paid for this indiscretion dearly at the hustings. This time too she has kept away from the Modi constituency and has been campaigning on the periphery. The Prince of Wales of the Congress party has yet to show his face to the electorate in Gujarat although the first round of elections are just three days away. He may show up at the closing stages just to blunt the sharpness of criticism against him. Rahul Gandhi was busy explaining nuances of FDI to the rural folks in Amethi when Shweta Bhatt was sweating all alone asking for votes for herself against Narendra Modi. Indeed an uphill task it is for the wife of a suspended IPS officer, who has been critical of Modi.

By all accounts she is fighting a losing battle with little guidance or support from the Congress high command. At the time of filing her nomination papers, she just had no idea what she was bargaining for. Sheer bravado and media hype, especially of what has come to be known as the paid media.