• “Gali Gali me naara hai, Aaj Gujarat kal Delhi Hamara Hai. One country, one people, one leader—Narendra Modi.”

An SMS sent out by Vande Gujarat, an organisation that works out of Gujarat BJP office, on Sunday.

• A banner outside the BJP office in Delhi screamed, “Jo Hindu hit ki baat karega, wohi desh par raj karega.” On the freshly printed banner, Narendra Modi gleamed life-size and the party president, Rajnath Singh, was stamp-size. The original poster boy of Hindutva, L K Advani did not find a place at all.

The signals after the results left little room for ambiguity. So while Rajnath Singh told Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi who called at 12.20 pm that “You’ve done it,” and L K Advani heaped praises on “Gujarat’s dynamic and highly popular” leader, the BJP leadership was trying not to over-emphasise Modi’s role in the Gujarat victory. Spokesmen in Ahmedabad and Delhi spoke about a “team effort” with Modi as the man of the match.

“Nobody is bigger than the party,” said Singh. “Modi will remain chief minister of Gujarat and Advaniji will lead the party in the Lok Sabha elections,” said Arun Jaitley, BJP general secretary in-charge of the elections.

But Sunday’s win announced loudly that Narendra Modi has arrived on the national scene. So has Hindutva 2.0. Advani’s original Rath Yatra started from Gujarat and spread the message of Hindu pride and cultural nationalism. Advani tried to link suraj — good governance — to Hindutva in 2004, but failed.

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