New Delhi, December 20: With Lal Krishna Advani making an unceremonious exit from the Bharatiya Janata Party, which perhaps a leader like Advani had not scripted, we witnessed the end of an era in Indian politics.
The man who was active in the Indian politics from pre-independence days and was instrumental in getting the BJP to the corridors of power in New Delhi, his political career which saw tremendous roller-coaster ride post Jain Hawala and Jinnah episode. The man who stood for the cause of Hindutva once by taking up the issue of building a Ram temple at Ayodhya took a u-turn and praised Jinnah in order to make his image as a secular leader and not the Hindu hardliner for a greater acceptance like Atal Behari Vajpayee in which Advani failed miserably as he was dumped by the same Hindu organisations which once backed him on the issue of Ram temple.
His statements following the Kandhar episode also led to great embarrassment and his high ambitions of becoming the prime minister too came to the fore when he didn’t support the Manmohan Singh government on the issue of Nuke deal with the United States of America. This led to the debacle of BJP in the Lok Sabha polls and with Dr Manmohan Singh getting the mandate for the second term, his last gamble to grab the chair also went in vain.
Now with the departure of Advani, the BJP has lost both its leaders (Atal and Advani) who were having some mass following. Now Sushma Swaraj has stepped into the shoes of Advani but the million dollar question is after the end of Atal-Advani era, who among the list of BJP leaders has the mass following at the national level. The answer is no one. Many of the leaders even have no knowledge of the workers at the grass-root level.
Well where the BJP would go from this point only time will tell we can just wish Advani a long and healthy life ahead.
–Agencies