New Delhi, Nov. 8: A little over a year ago, Amit Shah had been extolled as India's latest "avatar" of "Chanakya".

The BJP president, on his part, claims he has never lost any of the 28 elections he has fought since 1989 and has always managed to deliver Gujarat on a platter to Narendra Modi since 2002.

The 28 include elections to local bodies and sports associations.

In the Lok Sabha polls last year, Shah, who raised eyebrows in the BJP when Modi handed over Uttar Pradesh to him, swung the most spectacular victory the party had ever got.

Shah, a former Gujarat minister, had a dream run in 2014 as the BJP won serial Assembly elections - till the rookie Aam Aadmi Party blotted his CV in Delhi.

Then came Bihar, where he apparently swore to himself and his associates that he would avenge the Delhi debacle by toting up a great victory over the Grand Alliance.

The playing field of the original Chanakya - Pataliputra or present-day Patna - has become the new incarnation's Waterloo.

A second rout in a year has raised questions over Shah's continuance as BJP president after January 23, 2016, when his term ends.

Shah is completing the three-year tenure of his predecessor, Rajnath Singh, who resigned when Modi inducted him into his cabinet.

In the normal course of things, Shah was set to play a full second innings till 2019, the year the next Lok Sabha elections are due. The BJP's constitution allows him a second term.

But Shah's working style and, more importantly, his near-perfect equation with the Prime Minister that has allowed the duo to usher in a hegemonic regime in the BJP have angered a section of the party.

"Today, Rajnath Singh and Vasundhara Raje will be bursting crackers," a Shah loyalist said.

Rajnath's statement in an interview to a paper last week had unsettled the Shah team. Asked if the Bihar verdict would have a bearing on his future as the BJP chief, Rajnath had said Shah would get another team.

"There is no logic to link any Assembly election to the national president of the party," the home minister said, adding that when he had held the post, the BJP had won and lost polls.

But a source close to Shah wondered: "Why did Rajnath have to elaborate on it as though he exercised the veto?"

A section of the BJP believes that Modi and Shah had collaborated in "showing" Rajnath his "place". Rajnath was not allowed to appoint a police official of his choice from Uttar Pradesh as his private secretary, while the perception in the ruling establishment was that as the putative number two in the cabinet, he was looped out of the process leading to the draft agreement on the Naga peace accord earlier this year.

One of the main carps against the Modi-Shah duo is their alleged refusal to foster state leaders and their propensity to execute orders through handpicked adherents.

"It happened in the Delhi elections. A handful of central ministers, clueless about Delhi, was foisted to handle the polls while local leaders were sidelined. The practice was repeated in Bihar where a central team landed to bark orders to the Patna leaders, including veterans. Modiji has benefited from the encouragement Atalji (Atal Bihari Vajpayee) and (L.K.) Advaniji gave our state leaders. For him to checkmate other state leaders is shocking," a source said.

Today, after Bihar had given the BJP a huge thumbs-down, only Shah's core team members showed up at the party headquarters to take questions from the media.

Among them was general secretary and former Madhya Pradesh minister Kailash Vijayvargiya, who had worked closely with the BJP chief in Patna for the past few weeks.

Asked if Shah's term would be renewed in January, Vijayvargiya said: "The organisational elections would be over by the end of this year and he will be re-nominated as the BJP president."

Another Shah ally quoted "precedent", saying: "Normally, if a person steps in mid-term to complete his predecessor's tenure, he is given another term. It happened with Rajnathji who was appointed in place of Advaniji when Advaniji quit in 2006."

But linked to the issue of Shah's continuance is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

A source explained that the Sangh, "uneasy" with Modi's "unilateral" functioning in tandem with Shah, wanted to breach the partnership. "The Sangh sees Shah as a complete yes-man of Modi. It would ideally want someone who is stronger and can stand up to the Prime Minister now and then," the source said.

It means a crucial test lies ahead - a test of Modi's power and standing in not just the BJP but the extended Sangh parivar.