Leaders of lofty skies

Victory gets into the head, and loss hits where it hurts the most, especially when the battle zone is political.

Leaders of lofty skies

Victory gets into the head, and loss hits where it hurts the most, especially when the battle zone is political. The brigade that has fallen flat must make extra efforts to regain a strong foothold, and that includes eradicating disputes at the very root. BJP must act fast, or brace itself for further failure.

If the tallest leaders of the party have come out in the open about the Lok Sabha debacle, it's the duty of Lal Krishna Advani to lead it again into consensus. The rider must reclaim the reins before the horse runs amok.

How? First of all, the dispute over the second leader after himself needs to be solved. Then, extensive research needs to be conducted for the Saffrons to feel the real pulse of the country, the one they seemed to have lost. My contention is that BJP has more air-conditioned, TV studio leaders than any other party. One example is that even as the people of Bihar came out to vote against Lalu and his leadership, his opponent from Chhapra Lok Sabha failed to re-establish himself. The anti-incumbency factor did nothing to draw voters to him, thanks to his complacency.

It's high time the BJP defined a clear, non-contradictory ideology, and stuck to it. There can't be two paths to one chair, not when it comes to winning votes. Terms like 'hardliner' and 'soft-liner' have become the talking point among followers of the party's divided ideology, and they can't afford to let this happen anymore. What's even more astonishing is that it isn't the young gang in question, but ageing leaders, with all their years of rich expertise, who're headed to make the party poor. Here, it is equally important to enforce self-discipline more than anything else; otherwise the message will be clear: if he can't manage his own party, how can he govern the country?u00a0

Until the Right Wingers render themselves approachable and ensure acceptance by all groups, they can't play the game of power politics. Conservative as it may seem, the key is to not deviate from its own set of time-tested rules. For five long years, the BJP was against a coalition with the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) in Haryana, but at the last moment, it changed its decision, only to create confusion among party cadres and attract a sorry result.

Followers of the party remember the times when calls would be taken on the base of a bottom-up feedback mechanism, but sadly, now, everything trickles the top-down way.

I believe that like all other fields, there are no short cuts in politics. High profile, hierarchical entries into the party should be banned, and blinkers put on even the lambi race ka ghodas. Advani is a self-made man; the rest must follow suit. If everyone remembers where they came from, the bickering and bullying would stop, and the role of Opposition would resume. Outside of itself, we hope.

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