Ignoring calls from within for introspection, the BJP did not allow leaders to speak on their own states — in effect, Murli Manohar Joshi and Kalyan Singh were denied the chance to discuss the UP results while state unit chief Kesarinath Tripathi, reporting on the reasons for the party’s failure, shifted blame to “external factors”.

This ensured BJP president Rajnath Singh, being blamed by many in the party for the poll debacle in his home state, did not come under fire at the executive meeting. Warning against media leaks — “what should be shared internally with the leadership is reaching the party through the media” — he called for stitching the “internal weak links”.

Though he claimed to have identified factors for the UP defeat, he did not elaborate. He instead pointed to success in an Assembly by-election in the state two weeks after the results as a “sign of the party’s support base in the rural belt”.

To silence critics in the party, Singh went on: “I can clearly recall that Advaniji used to often say that no party has the capability of defeating the BJP; if we are defeated, it is only because of our own shortcomings.”

Moves for a UP post-mortem scuttled, the party, despite being taken for a ride by a fraud scientist over the Sethu Samudram project in Palk Straits (it was first reported by The Sunday Express), busied itself in a resolution on the project, saying “it will destroy the oldest symbol of India’s heritage”.

The resolution recorded the party’s “grave concern over the total insensitivity and obduracy on the part of the UPA Government, and in particular of the Shipping and Transport Minister Shri T R Baalu, in unabashedly proceeding with implementation of the controversial alignment of the Sethu Samudram Canal Project by completely ignoring the opinions of internationally recognised experts.”

The fraud ‘space’ scientist, Puneesh Taneja, who forged his credentials and for two years helped the RSS formulate its opposition to the project, has gone into hiding.

Undeterred, the party said it was not against the project but was only opposing its “present alignment” which “hurt the sentiments of Hindus, Muslims and Christians”.

“In the opinion of the BJP, the UPA Government has shown utter disregard not only to the sentiments of crores of Hindus but of all communities. It is now abundantly clear that the UPA Government led and guided by Mrs Sonia Gandhi has scant respect for the ancient heritage of India,” the resolution said.