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News Analysis

Advani walks into the sunset

Pallab Bhattacharya, New Delhi
The defeat in general elections 2009 is all set to spark a churning in the top leadership of India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party whose prime ministerial candidate LK Advani is firm on quitting as the leader of the opposition.
Soon after it became clear on Saturday that Congress-led UPA is all set to return to power with a decisive mandate, Advani conveyed to a meeting of the BJP parliamentary board that he would like to step down as the leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha.
However, the board turned down his offer but the 81 -year-old leader remained firm in his decision.
BJP sources said by offering to resign, Advani has indicated that when the party's newly-elected members of Lok Sabha meet here in next few days to elect their leader, they should look fora newperson.
BJP's most charismatic
leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee already in retirement and his contemporary Advani may also follow suit. At the age of 81, this was his last chance to be the prime minister had his party won the polls, but like some other deputy prime ministers in Indian politics, he too appears to have missed the bus.
As long as Vajpayee was there, Advani had always been overshadowed by the former. While Vajpayee was seen as the liberal face of BJP, Advani the mascot of strident Hindutva who had taken out a controversial 'Rathyatra' in 1980s.
Advani's repeated attack on Manmohan Singh as the "weakest" PM boomeranged badly on BJP when Congress hit back at him and exposed his own vulnerable point as Indian Home Minister when dreaded terrorists were released in return for safety of passengers of an Indian Airlines aircraft hijacked to Afghanistan in 1999.
Advani had brought the Hindutva ideology into the political discourse of India, tapped a new right-wing space but could help the party only up to a point as Congress looked organisationally jaded and bereft of fresh ideas to regain its strength.
With Advani now walking into virtual sunset, the opportunity has come for BJP's next line of leaders like Murli Manohar Joshi, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh and Narendra Modi, party insiders say. This could also spark power struggle in the party.
Rajnath Singh is the party president whose tenure ends this year-end and he will be under tremendous pressure to make way for others. For one, under Singh's leadership. BJP has fared poorly in the elections particularly in his home state of Uttar Pradesh where the party finished fourth behind Congress, BSP and Samajwadi Party.
Singh is also not in good
terms with some other senior leaders of the party and is reportedly busy undercutting his potential rivals within the party. Singh was involved in an open feud with party general secretary Arun Jaitley over the composition of candidate selection committee in the run up to this year's election. Jaitley even stayed away from the committee meetings for a few days before a shaky truce was brought about.
The challenge for BJP is to ensure a smooth transition to its second-rank leaders to come to the top and make the party a credible opposition having the potential of making it to the power.
The names doing the rounds in party circles to succeed Advani as leader of the opposition are those of Jaswant Singh, who is in the same post in the Rajya Sabha. Murli Manohar Joshi, former BJP president. Rajnath Singh and Sushma Swaraj.