Where did Advani lose it?

The election results are out and it is music to many ears as the congress led UPA is buckling up to form a government for the second time in a row. The prime minister has come out in public and acknowledged the hard work done by Rahul Gandhi in campaigning for the party. Many people believe that Rahul is walking in the footsteps of his father. His remark after the party's commendable performance in UP was exactly what Rajiv Gandhi had said after the historic 1984 elections. It is good to see that the congress have found a new messiah in the form of Rahul Ganhi.

This is where LK Advani's campaigning comes into picture. He kicked off his campaigning way before the Congress had and he was the undisputed Prime Ministerial candidate of the NDA. Yet, his party's performance was worse than that in 2004. The vote share has diminished dramatically. Anti incumbency, which was a trump card the BJP tried to play, failed miserably. Many political strategists drew similarities between campaigns of LK Advani and Barack Obama. While one of them pulled off a historic victory, the other was made to bite the dust. Where did Advani lose it? The answer is simple and straightforward. We Indians, are habituated to copy stuff. Be it a formal letter to somebody or a tv show that is popular in the west, we always try to copy stuff, maybe off the internet or from something existing physically. This is exactly what Mr. Advani or his "advisors" have done. They have seen that Barack Obama reached out to the people through a website of his own. Then they said to themselves, "Hey, why can't we do the same?". Soon Advani came up with a website and an advertising campaign titled "Determined leader decisive government". The problem here is that neither is Advani a determined leader nor is his government decisive. Barack Obama had associated himself with many key issues like healthcare, employment and tackling the economic recession. He also gave a gameplan of how he would tackle those issues if elected to power. Advani on the other hand had no such gameplan. The party manifesto only underlined the problems without mentioning about the solutions to them. He thought that the Indian population was stupid enough to believe in what he had to offer.

The other area where Advani failed was in personality projection. Obama was clean and was a fresh face to the American elections. Advani on the other hand was involved in the demolition of the Babri Masjid and has no ideology of his own. He is stuck between the Devil (RRS' ideology) and the deep sea (BJP). He has been in politics for so long that the people are bored of him and his speeches. What the BJP needed was a rejuvinated leader like Obama of Rahul Gandhi for that sake.

In my opinion, I think Advani should quit active poilitics and try to assume the role of a patriarch in the BJP. He should learn from Vajpayee, who gracefully exited active politics after his loss in the 2004 elections. Its time for him to pave way for the next generation leaders like Arun Jaitley to move up the heirarchy. I agree that becoming the PM was his dream. Unfortunately he couldn't cherish it. But he now has a chance, that of guiding a leader to become the PM and he will certainly derive more pleasure out of it.