Campaign backfired: Advani

BJP leader admits 'India shining' and 'feel good' failed as campaign slogans

Former Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani yesterday finally broke his silence on the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) debacle in the recent elections and admitted that the twin slogans of "India shining" and "feel good" failed as campaign planks.

"By making 'feel good' and 'India shining' verbal icons of our campaign we gave an opportunity to our political opponents to highlight other aspects of India's contemporary reality, i.e., poverty and uneven development, unemployment among the youth, problems faced by farmers, which questioned our claim," Advani said.

He defended the basic premise of the slogans though, saying that by belittling the slogans, "our opponents were not just criticising the BJP, they were actually mocking and belittling India's achievements".

"There are some things which are above partisan politics, where the nation as a whole can take pride, like the decline in terrorism, the rising prosperity and international regard for the country," he added.

Advani, however, refused to admit that the issues highlighted by the rival parties were the only reasons for the BJP's failure.

"The mandate is fractured and the message of the mandate is that the country does not want just one set of political opinion to influence decisions. The Congress has only got seven more seats that we have, there are various reasons to be attributed for this," he said.

"I refuse to admit that there was any large scale anti-incumbency against the central government, there was anti-incumbency in various states, and each state voted according to local issues. Moreover, out of the 300-odd seats we fought, 90 of our sitting MP s lost elections, showing that there was a need to change candidates," he said. The BJP had changed only 18 candidates.

Commenting on the projection of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee as one its main election planks, Advani said the result did not reflect on the standing of Vajpayee.

"Sometimes ideologies can be encapsulated in the personality of an individual, we are an ideological party and do not believe in personality cults, Atalji's appeal is untouched by the results," he said.

Advani also refused to admit that abandoning Hindutva and wooing the minorities after the Gujarat riots hurt the party's chances.

"We can never abandon the cultural nationalism which is our ideology, the nation is secular because of Hindutuva," he said. "We are unapologetic of our belief in Hindutva," he said.

A large part of what Advani said was actually targeted at the demoralised party cadre. "We need to introspect and not self-flagellate," was Advani's message to his party workers.

Advani also said the BJP had changed the paradigm of Indian politics since 1984, when the party got only two seats.

"Now Indian politics is bipolar with the Congress at one end and the BJP at the other," he said. "We will return as the natural party of governance, as of now we will be undertaking the role of a constructive Opposition," he said.

With Advani set to take over as the leader of the Opposition and Vajpayee as the leader of the BJP parliamentary party, the party will be looking at the former deputy prime minister to revive its political fortunes.