Is the era of a mass leader back ?

India has a rich history of mass leaders (religious or political). From Gautam Budha, Guru Nanak, Shankracharya... to Gandhi. They had huge fan following despite the fact they hardly used any means of communication.

Coming back to Republic of India, we had Nehru ji, Indira ji & (to a lesser extent) Atal ji. They were capable of pulling the crowds to listen them & to polling booth to vote for them. But with the rise of regional parties since 89 and retirement of Atal ji, I used to think that era of Pan Indian mass leader is gone. There few a few India leaders like Sonia, Advani ji etc, but they were not equally effective in all parts of India. Most of India was and still dominated by state straps.

But in recent times we have seen the rise of Narendra Modi. His charistma won Ladakh in North, Kanyakumari in South, Arunachal in east and of course Gujarat in west for BJP in 2014 parliamentary elections. BJP won in handsomely in cast ridden states of Bihar. They made inroads in Bengal, Tamil Ndau. Modi's rally attracted a million people in Patna and 70k in Kerela (where BJP has never won a Lok Sabha seats).

In Maharashtra, he has alone changed the face of BJP. Its expected that BJP may at least win 120 seats tomorrow. BJP never contested 120 seats there in last 25 years. This is by no mean a small achievement. I used to here/read that Nehru & Indira used to win single handily assembly elections for Congress. It seems that era of mass leaders are back. Tomorrow's result of Maharashtra election will be a first step for Modi to cement his mass image.