(Editor's note: This article was written a day after Narendra Modi was selected to head the BJP's poll campaign for the Lok Sabha elections at the national executive meeting in Goa. We replay the article.) 

Narendra Modi, they say, is the most divisive leader around. It is turning out to be more true for the BJP than for the country. He has only stepped on to the national platform and the party’s seniormost leader has retired hurt.

For those who have been Modi-watching from 1995, the story has only begun. Advani being a Modi-watcher from even before 1995, he should have known what was coming. More importantly, as somebody who allowed him to sideline other state leaders, Advani should have known his turn was bound to come.
In Gujarat, the story began soon after the BJP came to power for first time, in 1995. As general secretary (organisation) of the state BJP, Modi played the role of kingmaker. Keshubhai Patel was named the chief minister. The other big leader, Shankarsinh Vaghela, did not object but he wanted his supporters to be accommodated. It didn’t happen.

Vaghela then made repeated requests to Vajpayee and Advani but in vain. He launched his own party, became CM for a while, and then joined the Congress and ruined his career. From Gujarat BJP’s viewpoint, he was first of the several giants to be sidelined. (On Monday, Vaghela had his I-told-you-so moment, and said Advani was reaping what he had sown. The law of karma, what else.)

The next was Haren Pandya, the minister of state for home under Keshubhai. When Modi became CM in 2001 and needed a safe seat to be elected to the assembly, he wanted Pandya to vacate his Ellis Bridge seat in Ahmedabad. Pandya refused. A year later, for the December 2002 elections, Modi “took ill”, like Advani last weekend, and spent a couple of days in hospital till the BJP central leadership agreed not to give the ticket to Pandya.

The third biggie was Keshubhai Patel himself. In Modi’s first full term (2002-07), a section of MLAs rebelled under Patel’s leadership and asked the central leadership to remove Modi, accusing him of completely bypassing them, the elected legislators. Patel and his deputy, once-CM Suresh Mehta, and former union minister Kashiram Rana made several trips to Delhi, making petitions before Advani against Modi. After a while, they stopped wasting time. (Last year, Patel formed his own party, granting Modi the credit for further splintering the party.)

Vallabhbhai Kathiriya, another union minister from NDA days and with the largest winning margin from Rajkot to his credit, was also sidelined. So was Surendra Patel, for long Advani’s constituency manager in Ahmedabad.

A couple of old-timers survived the Modi storm. Ashok Bhatt, one of the longest serving MLAs and a pioneering name for BJP in Ahmedabad, was made the assembly speaker and then he faded away. Vajubhai Vala, who has presented the most number of Gujarat budgets, is now in that role – the speaker, and losing out political relevance.

In other words, the whole galaxy of BJP heavyweights in Gujarat has been sidelined by bullying tactics in order to ensure the rise of the one and only. The whole organisation has been sacrificed at the altar of a demigod. To the extent that few people even in Gujarat know who the state BJP chief is.
In December 2012 elections, Modi’s repeated message to voters was: the local candidate does not matter, vote for me. The running joke in the state is that if Modi goes to Delhi, BJP will be wiped out in Gujarat.

Now this man is coming to Delhi. Advani’s fate is just the beginning.