Be ready to be in opposition for 5 years: Advani

The Bharatiya Janata Party's three-day national executive in Ranchi, the first since LK Advani took over as the party president was perhaps their most introspective and ended with some tough talking by Advani.

Apart from asking the party to go back to its core Hindutva constituency, Advani told party workers to "make up their mind to sit in the Opposition for five years".

But former Prime Minster Atal Bihari Vajpayee in his valedictory address struck an optimistic note saying the "dark clouds of disappointment that had enveloped the party after the Lok Sabha elections have disappeared" and the party should gear up for the challenges ahead.

In a move to do just that Advani announced new office-bearers, the most significant of which was the appointment of Kalyan Singh as the incharge for Uttar Pradesh.

After the exit of Uma Bharti as the Other Backward Class (OBC) leader in the party, the strengthening of Kalyan Singh shows that the party has learnt its lessons well from the Lok Sabha elections.

In an apparent snub to Bharti, her arch rival Pramod Mahajan has been retained as the incharge for Maharashtra despite the BJP-Shiv Sena's defeat in the recent Assembly polls. Shivraj Singh Chauhan, another rival of Bharti, has been made incharge of Haryana and Delhi.

The man to gain most from the return of Advani, though, is Arun Jaitley, who has retained the charge of Bihar and Madhya Pradesh as well as the party media cell, which will give him control over the party office as well prominence.

The news that the BJP was doing well in the local body elections in Bhopal and Indore boosted the party since the exit of Bharti was supposed to affect the party's chances.

In his concluding remarks today, Advani said the common thread in the three-day deliberations was the "belief that the BJP is really the chosen instrument of the divine to take the country out of its present problems and to lofty heights of all round achievements."