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SPEAKING OF ROLE REVERSALS... There is an inescapable irony in the unfolding scenario. The Modi-led BJP has started looking more and more like the Indira Gandhi Congress while the
Rahul-Priyanka Congress seems to be borrowing a leaf out of the Vajpayee-Advani BJP playbook. Advani was the pre-Modi era BJP’s talent-spotter. He identified those with potential and
developed a second rung of leadership of which Modi was one. Vajpayee as PM nurtured them and gave them prominence. Through them, the BJP spread its footprint across states and registered
its first breakthrough in South India with Yediyurappa forming the first saffron government in Karnataka in 2008. The BJP broke tradition to name chief ministerial candidates and fought
Assembly elections under their leadership. Vajpayee and Advani played a limited role in the campaign and addressed token rallies. Unlike Modi, they did not carry every election, right down
to the municipal level, on their shoulders. Indira Gandhi, on the other hand, systematically cut down regional satraps of the Congress and positioned herself as the sole vote-catcher for the
party through a carefully crafted personality cult. In the process, she destroyed the party’s organisational machinery which is evident today in the steady decline of the Congress.
