JAIPUR: The writing on the wall is clear for

BJP. Narendra Modi was the only factor that mattered in this

polls—one that did not matter as much during the recent assembly polls last December, which led to BJP’s defeat.

Having lost the assembly polls six months ago, the BJP sprung a surprise by winning all the 25 Lok Sabha seats, including Nagaur where the party had supported the candidature of Hanuman Beniwal following an alliance with the RLP. The Thursday’s verdict establishes the fact that the December mandate against the BJP was against the state leadership and not against the saffron party as such. Though the party is not expected to make any immediate change in the state BJP, the LS verdict is expected to weaken former chief minister Vasundhara Raje’s hold and say in the state organisation. A glimpse of this was witnessed during this election when the party high command overruled her opinion on the selection of candidates for seats such as Barmer, Rajsamand, Nagaur and Dausa. While Raje had been campaigning for candidates across the state, it was not at the scale it once used to be.

Raje, the saffron party’s face for more than 15 years in the state, is not likely to hold the same position for long. She came close to losing that position once in June 2018 when the party high command was keen to bring in Jodhpur MP Gajendra Singh Shekhawat as the state party president, thwarted then by Raje’s strong opposition.

Shekhawat, despite a dip in his victory margin, registered a comfortable win against Vaibhav Gehlot in what was seen as one of the toughest fights. This win will lead to a manifold increase in Shekhawat’s stature, who is believed to be the party high command’s chosen alternative for Raje. Conventionally, big changes in the BJP come ahead of an election and not after. According to senior BJP leaders, the state BJP too will undergo an organisational change but not immediately.