Though the shock of defeat, colossal as it was, first made the rebels avoid the media, some came out by evening to admit they had lost. The youngest of the rebels, Siddharth Parmar, was the most vocal and forthright. “If Modi has won despite our best efforts, it is clear that there were flaws in our strategy. There were also major flaws in our day-to-day tactics,” he admitted. According to Parmar, lack of cohesion between various individuals involved, failure to match Modi with nimble footedness, and to translate Patel angst into votes for the Congress, were among the reasons. “We cannot blame the Congress. We should have worked harder. If our leaders had come out more openly, the result would have been different,” he opined.

Some of the rebels are now realising the folly of singling out Modi for abuses in their public addresses. “That might have been the mistake, as it gave an impression of Modi being victimised by a bunch, which was clearly not the case,” said one of the rebels.

Dr A K Patel felt the need for reorienting the Sardar Patel Utkarsh Samiti — the umbrella body that was used to spearhead the anti-Modi campaign. “Perhaps we need to broad base the Sardar Patel Utkarsh Samiti to include minorities, Adivasis, and Dalits to strengthen it,” he said.