After the last vote was cast, Prime Minister Narendra Modi walked into BJP’s national headquarters in Delhi with party chief Amit Shah. For the first time though, Shah was not walking a step behind Modi. He walked alongside.

Media did not notice it because it was too preoccupied with what it perceived was the first press conference of Modi since assuming Prime Minister’s office in 2014. Modi shared the stage with Shah but didn’t answer a single question. Instead, he took a back seat and let Shah do all the talking. That was the first indication of primacy being bestowed on Shah over all leaders.

Very few attached any importance to the act then. Not even when Shah was sworn in as Union cabinet minister on May 30 at number three - ahead of Nitin Gadkari but after Rajnath Singh. But merely 12 hours later, Shah - handed over the all important Home ministry - had replaced Rajnath as number two in the scheme of things.

It became clearer a couple of days later, when Shah convened a meeting with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Finance Minister Nirmala Seetharaman, Railway and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, Petroleum and Steel Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.

No Union Minister in the past had been authorised to chair such inter-ministerial meetings. Not even Deputy Prime Ministers like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Charan Singh, Jagjivan Ram or even BJP’s own Lal Krishna Advani. Not even when then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had started showing signs of Alzheimer’s - forgetting names of his close colleagues like Jaswant Singh and Syed Shahnawaz Hussain or dozing off in the middle of an official meeting.

And here was a first time Union Minister having almost the entire Cabinet at his beck and call. Shah’s new role has been defined by Modi: a well written script of his succession. The first step is clear - empowering Shah in the Cabinet to run the show in his absence.

An indication of his role in chairing high-level discussions was his meeting with senior Cabinet colleagues for discussions involving India’s strategic options in Africa with specific focus on Mozambique whose President had spoken to Prime Minister Narendra Modi a day earlier