Finally, caste-community equations have resurfaced in a much stronger way than before, defying all attempts to subsume these under an overarching Hindu identity. Travelling from constituency to constituency, we found ourselves doing a fresh arithmetic of the kind we did only in Bihar or Haryana. It is not just the dominant Rajputs and Patels and the familiar Dalits and Muslims. The rising political aspirations of caste groups like Ahirs and various sub-groups of Kolis are making their presence felt. It is not that the BJP has not done its caste arithmetic carefully or that its choice of candidates is indifferent. It is just that this is not BJP’s game.

One doesn’t know what this game’s final outcome will be. But we do know that for all its flaws, normal politics is perhaps the best guarantee against the dark side of democracy that Gujarat has witnessed.

The writer is Senior Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies