BJP wins Gujarat elections Modi the King

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Narendra Modi has led the BJP to a spectacular victory in the Gujarat assembly polls. After sweeping Gujarat in a landslide, Modi is walking the walk of a victor. And, within hours of the win, talking the talk as well. On Sunday, everyone and everything was fair target for Modi. He first swipe was at the Election Commission, that also had a glancing blow for Congress President Sonia Gandhi.Narendra Modi, Chief Minister, Gujarat said, “We expect the EC's decision to be non-controversial. They gave two different notices to Sonia Gandhi and to me. They also took two different decisions. This is all an effect of the colonial rule"
With Modi's sweeping victory setting alarm bells ringing, the secular parties may have to bury their differences, even if those differences are over the Indo-US nuclear deal. Earlier, the UPA and the Left had agreed to a ceasefire till the Gujarat elections were over. But none had expected Modi to trounce the Congress. The result may reduce the Left-UPA tension and the BJP is already sensing that.

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Narendra Modi will take oath for the third time as Gujarat chief minister on Tuesday, which is veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's birthday.
Modi, who on Sunday led the BJP to victory in Gujarat once again winning 117 of the 182 seats, will take the oath of office at 12.39 pm, considered an auspicious time.
The grand ceremony is likely to take place either at the Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad, where the same ceremony was held in December 2002, or in capital Gandhinagar.
There were plans earlier to hold the function in Rajkot, the main city of the Saurashtra region that was the hub of anti-Modi dissidents in the party.
BJP sources here said top central leaders including Vajpayee were likely to attend the ceremony.
Anyone may hate or like Modi or not but he is the choice of the people of Gujarat.

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Men behind Modi’s show

Poll analysts may continue to debate Narendra Modi’s winning formula, communalism or development, but the chief minister knows it was all thanks to his committed crew of campaign managers.

The men behind the success were about half a dozen dedicated BJP workers who took charge of the campaign, from the travel plans of leaders to contents of the publicity materials.

The team was led by long-time party worker Sunil Trivedi, an engineer, who also oversaw arrangements for tours of all the leaders who came from outside Gujarat. Assisting him was a team of equally dedicated workers who looked after aspects like print materials, audio and video items and even cyber publicity.

ABVP leader Pankaj Shukla, who runs a local courier service, helped Trivedi in the tours division. Trivedi would do the ‘total planning’ and Shukla had to implement it.
The others in charge were Asit Vora (audio-visual), Atul Bhavsar (print material), S.G. Yadav (cyber space) and Yamal Vyas (media relations).
Vora, a textile engineer with a reputed company, took leave for few days to go through as many as 130 CDs of speeches made by Modi in the last few years. Clippings of the chief minister's speeches were then screened by a supervising panel comprising senior leaders Arun Jaitley, Rajya Sabha MP Surendra Patel and Kakubhai, a Modi confidante.

video 'raths' (vans) that went round the constituencies.

Bhavsar was responsible for any material that was printed on paper, cloth or plastic - a range of items like stickers, banners, danglers, small and big flags, torans (small welcome arches), scarves, paper masks and even polling slips. “All these were printed here and full kits were distributed straight to the constituencies.”

The cyber team was headed by Shashi Ranjan Yadav, a mathematics professor. They managed Modi’s websites and the Gujarat BJP's and put campaign material on YouTube. “The idea was to target Internet and mobile users. We got many slogans from Orkut groups started by Modi fan clubs.”

One unique achievement of this campaign was that 50 people became BJP workers after contacting the cyber unit.

Perhaps the most popular item was the Modi mask. Sources close to the chief minister said it was the idea of a businessman, Maneesh Bharadia, who had earlier manufactured CDs of the Vibrant Gujarat and Navratri events.

Bhavsar said the masks had arrived from a China-based toy factory and the BJP office had just distributed them. No one in the campaign team has any idea who had asked Bharadia to order the masks in China.