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For a few memorable moments on Monday morning, the Congress gave the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) an almighty scare. Counting was initially going as expected, with the early trends giving the ruling party in Gujarat a clear lead. But just as another term appeared in sight, the Congress suddenly staged an unlikely comeback, going neck-and-neck with the BJP as the possibility of an upset grew less remote.
The timing of this sudden surge coincided with the opening bell on Dalal Street, sending shivers down its spine as both the Sensex and the Nifty plummeted in early trade. But then order was restored within the hour as the BJP crossed the majority mark and then pulled away into a healthy lead, albeit still short of its tally in the 2012 elections.
In retrospect, did we just witness the trailer for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections? A couple of months ago, the outcome of those general elections seemed like a foregone conclusion given Narendra Modi's popularity and a fractured opposition. The same could be said of the Gujarat elections. Who would doubt a BJP victory in the home turf of Modi and his trusted cohort, BJP president Amit Shah? Who would have imagined that newly-elected Congress President Rahul Gandhi, a figure so frequently lampooned, would stand up to the man who humiliated him personally and at the ballot boxes in the 2014 elections?
In the end, Rahul Gandhi didn't upset the BJP's applecart, but provided reason enough to believe that he could well do so in less than 18 months from now. He led this campaign from the front, relentlessly campaigning across Gujarat and reinventing himself along the way. His tweets about his pet dog Pidi may have attracted mockery, but his social media presence in recent months has been a source of wit and calculated digs. Above all, he showed that while he does not possess the charisma or the oratory skills of PM Modi, he does have the mettle for the battle.
Rahul Gandhi's next major challenge will be the Karnataka Assembly elections in the middle of 2018., where he faces the task of clinging to power in the last major state that the Congress has in its grasp. Later in the year, he will seek to wrest power from the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Narendra Modi will undoubtedly a star campaigner in those states, but will certainly not be a 'son of the soil' as was the case in Gujarat. And therein lies the hope for 2018 and beyond.
For the BJP, Rahul Gandhi's resurgence provides plenty to think about. Amit Shah went into this election confident of winning 150 seats in the 182-member house. After the BJP fell well short of that target, its party chief said he hadn't anticipated the levels to which the Congress would stoop. There was no candid admission forthcoming about Rahul Gandhi playing a role, but perhaps there is some acknowledgement behind closed doors.
While the BJP would do well to take away some lessons from this election, it still has plenty to crow about. For starters, Narendra Modi's popularity appears to be undiminished. In the end, it was probably his '56-inch chest' that kept the Congress at arm's length. In addition, the victory proved that that its gambles with demonetisation and GST have not alienated voters. That said, the BJP-led Centre will probably steer clear of risky reforms as the home stretch for the 2019 election draws nearer.
The BJP can now end 2017 knowing that it rules 19 out of the country's 29 states, but equally aware that the elections in the run-up to 2019 and the Lok Sabha elections that year will not be the cakewalk it previously imagined.
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