Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s anointment as the prime ministerial candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party, overcoming an often bitter power struggle within the party, is as much a victory for him as for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) strongman Mohan Bhagwat who has come out forthright doing straightforward politics without clinging deviously to the hogwash of his organisation being a “cultural” body.

The elevation of Modi was a story foretold as the RSS has made up its mind to have it no other way. Although he had become Hindutva’s poster boy after the 2002 Gujarat pogrom, the RSS was not in his favour then because he was thought to be self-driven, narcissistic and full of self-love, placing himself above the organisation. He also gave RSS and VHP adherents a hard time whenever they did not kowtow to him.

But Modi was aware that he could not graduate beyond Gujarat without the support of the RSS. So he changed tack and literally wooed the RSS top brass. He knew well that the Delhi-based BJP leaders, who hated his guts and disliked his egotism, would meekly fall in line the moment the RSS cleared him. This is exactly what has happened. Yet for all the Sangh’s seeming authority, the mission was not easily achieved.

BJP chief Rajnath Singh was hard put to deliver the deal despite spending the better part of two days hopping from one sulking leader to another. It was an open secret that Modi’s appointment as the BJP’s campaign committee chief at the June 2013 Goa national executive meeting was a precursor to him getting the larger role. But this clear signal, however, did not ensure automatic co-operation from the dissidents led by party veteran L K Advani who fought until the last moment to prevent the inevitable. There has never been such an open show of revolt in the BJP in selecting its prospective leader.

Eventually, excepting Advani, all have fallen in line and endorsed Modi. Despite hectic parleys, cajoling, persuasion by top leaders, the “iron man” refused to relent. But his opposition fell by the wayside as the RSS had moved in and backed Modi to the hilt. The angry warhorse, who refused to attend the parliamentary board meeting, instead circulated a tartly worded letter of dissent, giving the impression that he would prefer political oblivion to accepting Modi’s leadership.

The BJP has tried to project the deep differences as democracy at its vibrant best. Rajnath Singh has said that as the party’s most senior figure, Advani had every “right” to be “upset” at the turn of events. This is exaggerated oriental courtesy signifying nothing. Even Advani will concede that the decision he did not like was taken democratically to the extent that this can happen in the BJP over which RSS has the first right of tendering advice and ensuring compliance.

The brusque and peremptory sidelining of Advani from key decision-making in the BJP can mean in effect the end of an era, but the dawn of a new era will be really tested if the party after the poll faces a situation when it still requires the level of support that the authoritarian, polarising Modi is unlikely to muster from those far distanced from the saffron brigade. Should such a scenario arise, it may become hard to ignore an entity such as Advani.

For the moment, the imagery of a veteran, who has been betrayed by his protégé and abandoned by those he had nurtured, nursing his wounds is a gripping one. The humiliation of being told at the fag end of his life, after he did so much and so selflessly to build up his organisation, that he is just not wanted anymore must hurt. His transition from patriarch to arch-dissident is a compelling paradox.

But, for all those who lived through the terrible days of his ‘rath yatra,’ launching the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in the early 1990s, and the whole gruesome saga of a planned campaign to polarise the country on the basis of religion for political gains, it is difficult to feel sorry for Advani. As his chariot wended its way through the land, it left behind death and destruction in its wake. The fervour that was built up inevitably led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid two years later, a seminal moment in India’s history. The BJP upped its parliamentary numbers from 85 to 120 in the next elections and eight years later, came to power.

The architect of that bloody strategy is left in the lurch now and the man with the heavy baggage of 2002 pogrom is chosen as the new mascot. What has happened in the BJP may not be a churning in which old gave way to the new. Modi has been catapulted to the top position not because the BJP Parliamentary Board selected him but due to the diktats of the RSS which is the fountain head of the Sangh Parivar and controls its various arms including the BJP and dozen others.

The RSS’ avowed objective is to work for Hindu renaissance in India and the organisation wanted its own man in place to deliver on core Hindutva issues: building of a Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya, scrapping Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and enacting a uniform civil code. The RSS’s bosses felt that Modi in the present context would be the right guy to work for the completion of the stated aspirations and goals of the organisation. They were very sore when the BJP-led government had earlier skirted these issues.

Now nominated for the nation’s top job by a national party, Modi has an extremely difficult job at hand of helping the RSS realise its dream as well as convincing the nation that he can do for it more than what he has done for Gujarat, excluding, of course, the riots.

It is no use saying that the Gujarat model can be replicated elsewhere in such a vast and diverse country like India. Can he rise above the Hindutva agenda and set aside communal targeting to appeal to Indians in general? Can he disprove his detractors by unfolding his inclusive agenda of governance and build consensus on vital issues not only within the BJP but with other parties as well? Modi is not likely to lose any sleep over the grim prospects.