How Modi & a napkin led to BJP win in 1998

Everyone says it was a paper napkin that did in the Grand Old Party. It was 1998, and a trying time for the BJP in Himachal Pradesh. To steer it clear from political doom, the party sent the then national secretary Narendra Modi.

What Modi and the state party leaders did then amidst a high-wire post-poll stitching of a coalition is part of political folklore in the state. In its poll campaigns, the BJP takes every opportunity to remind voters of the time when Modi was part of the party's activities in the state and that this is the first home of the PM, the second head of state after Atal Bihari Vajpayee to call the state home.

For those who witnessed the action, the memory is still fresh. In the 1998 Lok Sabha elections, when the results were declared, in the 68-member constituency, the Congress bagged 31 seats, while the BJP 27. Himachal Vikas Manch, a party formed by former telecom minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu won four seats.

While the BJP managed to win over the HVM candidates, the Congress managed to win over a rebel BJp candidate -- Ramesh Dhamala, considered close to former CM Shanta Kumar. Eventually, the Congress was invited by then governor to form the government and the party had to prove majority in six days.

"Polls were fought in 65 seats as Kinnaur, Lahaul-Spiti and Bharmaur, usually cloaked in slow and inaccessible, held polls after the government was formed. The winning party's candidates usually won there," says journalist Shashikant Sharma, who teaches journalism in the Himachal Pradesh University. Sharma, who is also a honorary advisor to the Governor, was covering the elections then as a reporter.

The BJP alleged that Dhamala was kidnapped and was kept in the CM's residence in Oakover and was surrounded by policemen at all times. Khushi Ram Balnatah, who was then the BJP's general secretary and witness to it, recalls the high-wire drama that ensued. Senior leaders including Shanta Kumar, JP Nadda, PK Dhumal, Balnatah and Modi were thinking of ways to reach out to Dharmala, who was very close to Shanta Kumar.

"We found a person working in the hospitality wing of Oakover and asked him to hand over a note in a paper napkin, where we sent a message asking him to call Shanta Kumar," says Balnatah. He recalls that it too some deft maneuvering on the part of Dharmala and a fair bit of running before he jumped into a waiting car to join the BJP finally to form the government with Dhumal as CM. Dharmala later said that he was held against his will.

Sharma says that the polls changed the fate of Modi, who was later elevated within the party. "When Modi reached Shimla, he managed cars for the party and ensured it had its own building here. He was resourceful and knew what he wanted. He also snubbed older leaders like Shanta Kumar the wrong way. It was then that Dhumal rose within the party," recalls Sharma. In his poll rally in Shimla earlier this year, Modi mentioned Sharma and other journalists, who he said, treated him to endless cups of coffee at the India Coffee House on the Mall Road.

Deepak Sharma of the Deepak Bhojanalaya in Mall Road talks of the time Modi came to take naps in his house. His wife, Seema, remembers exchanging Gujarati recipes with him. "We never thought he will be the CM of Gujarat back then, let alone be the PM," says Seema.

A trip down memory lane

Deepak Sharma of the Deepak Bhojanalaya in Mall Road talks of the time Modi came to take naps in his house. His wife, Seema, remembers exchanging Gujarati recipes with him. “We never thought he will be the Gujarat CM back then, let alone be the Prime Minister,” says Seema