Is L.K. Advani, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s former mentor, guide and man for all seasons, although he retains his place in the party’s parliamentary board, going the way of former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao?
The late PM thought he had played his innings. They say he had said his adieus, and is thought to have packed his bags for home, when exceptional circumstances hauled him back to lead the country. The man had been pretty much everything in his party and the Congress government, but not Prime Minister.
On Friday night, releasing a book at a packed function at the Press Club of India, the BJP stalwart confessed he was “now a blogger, hardly a politician”.
But in a speech that was anything but rambling (given his age), it seemed
to listeners he said everything he needed to, faltering for neither words
or thoughts, throwing meaningful hints at intervals. The way he carried the audience, he might have been 20 years younger.
Recalling a long-ago interview in which he had spoken of his “weakness” for books, the book Mr Advani chose to mention before his eager audience was the Pakistani writer Mohisn Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, although the BJP leader said he had not had the chance to read it. Some wondered if the title had been chosen as an oblique reference to his current public situation.
The not-so-reluctant blogger chose to remind his listeners of the “turning point” in BJP’s history. This, according to him, came about in 1989 when the party’s Lok Sabha strength rose from a meagre two in 1984 to 86. Political circles can’t fail to recall that this was under his direct leadership and supervision of the election campaign.
The audience wondered if Mr Advani would respond to certain observations from the podium, and he duly obliged, setting off speculations.
A speaker had remarked on the tendency these days to throw into the “manjh-dhar” (whirlpool) leaders who had brought a party from the “tang dhar” (narrow marginalised stream) to the “mukhya dhar” (mainstream).
Not-so-retiring yet, Mr Advani said such thoughts came from “sympathisers”, suggesting he accepted the appositeness of the analogy.