The old faithful

There is an old Beatles song that goes, "When in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me." The BJP is like that. When in times of trouble, L K Advani comes to it.

So what ought to have happened in June, after the party slumped from 182 seats in the 13th Lok Sabha to 136 in the 14th, has finally happened now.

The debacle in the Maharashtra election made it inevitable. Mr Venkiah Naidu has been asked to go, and his place as president of the BJP has been taken by Mr Advani, who has held the job twice before.

This is hardly surprising, considering he is the only one in the party who has had an incredibly successfull track record in getting the party to win elections (never mind the methods, for the nonce), who commands the respect of all the factions, who has the energy to devote to reorganising the party, and who, above all, will be able to focus single-mindedly on all the problems of ideology and perception that face the BJP.

If he manages to get the party back to the winning streak, the prime minister's job could be one prize that awaits him. Incentive enough, then, for the 76-year-old Mr Advani old to get on with the job.

How he gets on with it, though, is something that everyone will be watching closely. The thing to look out for is whether he will go back to the tried and tested Hindutva platform. There is no reason for him not to as it has worked before, not just once but twice.

Besides, there is the perception within the party that the BJP has lost its electoral charm because it had strayed from the True Path, namely, militant Hindutva. Under Mr Vajpayee the party had softened its approach, even going to the extent of wooing Muslim voters during the last general election.

Many BJP supporters believe that this was wrong"" tactically, strategically and, indeed, morally""as it was a 'betrayal' of the party's core appeal. It is most likely, therefore, that Mr Advani will quickly set about gathering the flock together again by reiterating the old hard line.

This is not very good news and it must be hoped that his natural wisdom will keep him closer to the path of moderation than his supporters want. But these things have a way of acquiring their own dynamic and that is what Mr Advani needs to guard against.

Reverting to tried and tested methods, incidentally, is not something the BJP alone will be guilty of. The country has seen how the Congress, having been out of power for far longer than it has been accustomed, quickly went back to the economic shibboleths of the 1970s.

Even those, like Mr Manmohan Singh and P Chidambaram, who believe that the old economic policies had proved disastrous, have had no difficulty in accepting that approach. This suggests that even the moderates within BJP will go along with Mr Advani if he opts for a Hindutva line. This, too, is a cause for real concern.