Former volunteers for the “Advani-for-PM campaign” have asked the senior BJP leader to “clarify the party’s position on Hindutva” and to raise issues like “decentralisation in the party apparatus” and “current concerns like environment”, when he hits the road in the coming weeks to meet party cadres and youth across the country.

Most of the volunteers — including engineers, MBAs and chartered accountants — who helped put together Advani’s website and assisted with back-up operations during the over six-month-long project have since returned to their respective professions. The campaign office at Delhi’s 26, Tughlaq Crescent, has, meanwhile, been shut down. But they still have the BJP’s future on their minds.

Back to organic farming in Coimbatore, software professional-turned-new-age-agriculturist Robin Rappai, who worked towards making Advani’s website “interactive”, is keenly tracking the developments in the BJP. “The bickering (over the reasons for the party’s defeat) only shows internal democracy here, always in short supply elsewhere. I think that Advani’s yatra should concentrate on mapping the country’s diverse needs. He should also talk about protecting all kinds of freedoms, as well as emerging environmental problems,” says Rappai, a Catholic, who is convinced that his “association with the BJP would continue”.

Bhanu Chander, who helped Team Advani with research support, will rejoin the global accounting major he worked for before coming to Delhi, but is keen that “the BJP spread its influence in states like Tamil Nadu and West Bengal”. During his yatra, says Chander, Advani “must clarify the party position on Hindutva, promote younger faces, and talk about decentralisation in the party apparatus”.

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