March 2022, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the Uttar Pradesh elections and retained power in Uttarakhand, Manipur, and Goa. The next day, Narendra Modi was on the streets in Ahmedabad, celebrating the party’s win but, in effect, setting the stage for the Gujarat elections. It was an echo of the past. In 2017, in the final phase of the UP polls, even as his own constituency, Varanasi, was voting, Modi was praying at the Somnath temple in Gujarat with images beamed across national television networks. In both instances, one round of elections had barely got over, but all eyes were on the next.For the BJP leadership, elections are a political, ideological, organisational, and personal project — a project that deserves respect, self-correction and deep investment. For the only leader who matters in the Congress, polls are an object of disdain and the electoral process is a distraction from an abstract ideological battle — a project that deserves little respect, self-reflection, and engagement. And for the AAP leadership, elections are purely instrumental and tactical exercises without ideological underpinnings — a project to help expand the leader’s national brand, with ambition often not matched by either organisational ability or a local face or a larger message to underpin it. These approaches offer clue to the strengths and weaknesses of parties in the run up to 2024.