It’s both victory and defeat for BJP chief

Amit Shah won, and lost. He won for himself a Rajya Sabha seat from Gujarat, making his debut as a parliamentarian. On the day he completed three years as BJP chief, Shah lost on his home turf the reputation of a leader who knows the art of winning even the hardest of battles.

For next six years, Shah will live with the grudge of having failed to defeat Congress’s Ahmed Patel, whom the 52-yearold BJP president is said to hold guilty for his legal troubles during the UPA regime.

Patel’s victory in Gujarat Rajya Sabha polls comes despite Shah and his team putting their entire might behind rebel Congress leader Balwant Singh Rajput, who was the BJP’s third candidate for the August 8 Rajya Sabha election.

The last couple of weeks saw six Congress MLAs resigning from the party, some defecting to the BJP, and central agencies raiding the premises of a Karnataka Congress leader who hosted his party colleagues from Gujarat to avoid a break in their ranks.

Patel could poll just 44 votes — the exact number he needed to return to the Rajya Sabha. It was much below the Congress’s reduced strength of 51 members in the house. Patel managed to keep his flock together averting Shah’s bid to poach more Congress legislators. That he managed to convert an otherwise easy win for Patel into a nail biting contest was the only solace for the BJP president.

Shah will continue to enjoy the confidence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but the result add to the short list of Shah’s electoral failures. BJP’s routs in Bihar and Delhi assembly election are the only big entries .

Gujarat will elect a new government later this year in December. Patel’s victory will, however, inject a new lease of life into beleaguered Congress.