We were both at a loose end of sorts. I, having walked out of my job after a bitter row with my editor over an article critical of Sonia Gandhi, was trying to set up a parliamentary research system for the BJP, a project which was dear to Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani. The task had been assigned Jaswant Singh and my job was to assist him. The project failed to take off for reasons which are not relevant here. I was drafted to help with headquarters work, including election campaigns, and assist Vajpayee with his parliamentary work. At the time of elections and when Parliament was in session, there was work to do; at other times, there was little or nothing to do.

A short walk from my office, across what then used to be a sprawling lawn, at 11 Ashoka Road, the BJP headquarters, was the office of Narendra Modi – Narendrabhai to all, from the chaiwallah to senior leaders – who had shifted base to Delhi after Shankersinh Vaghela’s revolt rocked Kehsubhai Patel’s Government in Gujarat. The first time I had met him was during Murli Manohar Joshi’s Kanyakumari to Kashmir Ekta Yatra which he had organised. It was a brief meeting but I had fond memories. After that he had got engrossed with Gujarat politics which kept him busy till he moved to Delhi. Now he too seemed to have little to do, though I can’t recall an occasion when I saw him doing nothing. Those days the party headquarters would function like any professionally run office. Advani, who was party president, would arrive any time between 9.30 am and 10 am, and work non-stop, holding meetings, reviewing State unit programmes, dealing with the long queue of visitors, till 1.30 pm. He would go home for lunch and be back at 3 pm, to work till 5.30 pm. All of us based at the headquarters had to follow the same routine.

Narendrabhai would arrive sharp 9.30 am – the joke was you could set your watch by his time of arrival – and head straight to his office. He would invariably be neatly turned out in a crisply ironed half-sleeve kurta and sparkling white churidar pajamas, hair combed and beard trimmed. He had a white Ambassador car, one of the three luxuries he allowed himself. The other two were a mobile phone (a rarity those days; he had an Ericsson and later a Motorola with an unfolding antenna which raised a lot of curiosity) and a 386 laptop that weighed a ton. He lived in the outhouse of a party MP’s bungalow – a single room that had a light and a fan, and a window opening into a side lane. In his office, Narendrabhai would work on his desktop (our official issue was standard black-and-white screen monitors, CPUs with tediously slow processors and even slower dial-up Internet connections for which we would have take special permission from Jana Krishnamurthy) and was not fond of unannounced visitors. The message quickly went around and nobody would dare barge into his office, a courtesy extended to only Advani till then.

I was privileged to have his permission to drop in whenever I wished to, which I would do quite often. Arun Jaitley and Arun Shourie would regularly address the media those days. My job was to scan the morning papers, come up with issues and prepare talking points and draft statements. Arun Jaitley would drop in on his way to court and finalise the day’s menu. Work done I would walk across to Narendrabhai’s office for a chai and a chat. He spoke very little, but listened with great attention. And when he spoke, it was to bounce off ideas with which he would be brimming. In those early days of computers and Internet it was amazing how much he knew, much of that knowledge culled from reading journals and surfing the Net. I had made a difficult transition from typewriters to computers, and was fascinated by the effortless ease with which he navigated his way through the information highway. I don’t think he ever used a typewriter; for him the transition was likely from a pen to the keyboard. We would all have lunch at the chummery: roti, dal, rice and a sabzi. Narendrabhai ate with us, sharing the humble meal. Some of us would complain about the bland, tasteless daily fare; I never heard him complaining.

During the crisis precipitated by Vaghela’s rebellion, two words had been coined and gained currency: Khajuriyas and Hajuriyas. Khajuriyas were the rebel MLAs who were whisked off to Khajuraho; Hajuriyas were the jee-hazoor loyalists. Months later, if memory serves me right it was after an episode involving flattery influencing a key decision by the leadership that had left many of us feeling dejected, I casually asked him: “Narendrabhai, we are neither Khajuriyas nor Hajuriyas. What does that make us?” There was a flicker of a smile on his face as he replied, “We are Majuriyas… our work is to toil for the party.” That was not a stray comment, as I was to realise over the years, but a mantra, a belief which he continues to practice.

After the NDA Government came to power, I shifted to the PMO and later to Cairo as Director of the Maulana Azad Centre. By the time I landed in Cairo, Narendrabhai had returned to Gujarat as Chief Minister and immersed himself in reconstruction work, rebuilding large parts of the State after the calamitous earthquake. But before he and I could settle down in our new jobs (his, a high assignment; mine, a lowly Government task) came the grisly attack on Sabarmati Express and the violence that followed. From distant Cairo I could only track the violence, and Narendrabhai’s handling of the situation, through Foreign Office telegrams that came twice a day with updates.

My Ambassador, the kindly SJ Singh, tasked me with dealing with the Arab media which had gone berserk, running wild stories (a great deal wilder than what Teesta Setalvaad could ever think of) on the violence. It was a challenge, not the least because I knew no Arabic and the editors, columnists and writers I had to deal with knew no English. It took more than persuasion and logic but we were able to blunt the hostile edge of the reportage and commentary, and after a while neutralise the hostility altogether. Though dealing with the media was not part of my remit, I did it for three reasons: For India’s image, for the BJP and the NDA Government it led, and for Narendrabhai. Would I have taken on that task had Narendrabhai not been the Chief Minister of Gujarat? That’s a question I would put off for another day.

In the summer of 2004 the NDA lost the general election and exited office. I resigned from my post in Cairo and returned jobless, homeless, family in tow, to Delhi. I got back to writing for The Pioneer, now edited by Chandan Mitra, and one of the early big pieces I wrote was when the US withdrew its visa to Narendrabhai, denouncing that decision. Then, as now, there were few in the media willing to openly defend Narendrabhai but that was never a deterrent for some of us, including Swapan Dasgupta and Chandan Mitra, curiously all of us expatriate Bengalis. Till 2002 I had passing interest in Gujarat. Since then it has been a passion to follow developments in Gujarat primarily for three reasons: Narendrabhai, his governance model and the tremendous delivery of growth and development in that State. Over the past decade I have possibly visited and seen more of Gujarat than West Bengal. And I am of the firm conviction that what has been achieved in Gujarat can be achieved by India.

You could well ask why this firm conviction. Here’s why. I have had the good fortune to work with Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a ‘Majuriya’ whose vision and toil are reflected in his record in office. The NDA’s success story bears witness to Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s leadership. India has suffered grievously over the past decade and the India Story has faded away. The slide needs to be halted. Aspirational India’s dreams need to be realised. This nation deserves far better than what it has received at the hands of a hugely corrupt Congress-led UPA regime. India deserves a visionary leader. More important, India needs a leader who can break, make that demolish, the status quo, and free India from the Delhi Establishment’s evil vice-like grip which has brought this great nation to such a sorry pass. This nation is starved of hope; and hope needs to be rekindled as also pride in being Indian. Having seen Narendrabhai lead Gujarat, give wings to the dreams and aspirations of Gujaratis, infusing hope and confidence in all Gujaratis, I believe he can do for India what he has done for Gujarat.

Narendrabhai is the BJP’s choice for the Prime Minister’s job. If his soaring, giddying popularity is any indication, he is also India’s choice. He is India’s future.