India, April 30 -- Even though no upsets were expected in the Gujarat local body polls, the scale and sweep of the BJP's win (all 15 municipal corporations) are stunning. With assembly polls in the state due next year, the result offers a mirror to the political climate in the state. At least, two trends stand out. One, the BJP's organisational muscle and election management remain unsurpassed. The party has won all state elections since 1995, and has had an uninterrupted stint in office in Ahmedabad since 1998. In this period, the party organisation has expanded deep and wide. Each time it suspected a shift in public mood, the leadership corrected its course to stay in office. The party has thus always set the political agenda in the state and controlled the narrative. A perfect storm in 2016-17 - hardship over demonetisation and GST, crop failures, the Una flogging etc. - posed a threat, but the BJP survived the 2017 election with a reduced majority. The party has since assumed an aura of invincibility - it won a historic 156 seats (out of a total of 182) in the state assembly in 2022. The contribution of the party's central leadership to this dominance is self-evident. A second factor that has enabled the BJP's dominance is the divided and unimaginative Opposition. The Congress organisation in the state is moribund, and its leaders seem to have forgotten the art of winning elections. Occasional appearances by central leaders are no substitute for the hard yards needed to rebuild the party. The AAP has turned out to be a flash in the pan, and its rise has further reduced the Congress's salience. But more than anything else, both parties have failed to place an alternative political, social, or economic agenda before the electorate. In terms of ambition, agenda, and organisation, the Opposition appears poorly placed to challenge the BJP hegemon in Gujarat....