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”.

Another volunteer, Anay Joglekar, says that the party must pay attention to the key area of communications. “Many a time, professionals hired for various communications projects are not well-versed with the party ideology, which may be understood better by the booth-level worker,” says Joglekar, adding, “Advani, whose politics has been defined by his yatras, must also end his active political life with another yatra”. Busy giving inputs for a vision document being prepared by the Maharashtra BJP in the run-up to the elections there, Joglekar will get back to the Israeli Consulate, where he worked prior to joining Advani’s team.

Another Mumbaikar, Mallika Noorani, who looked after the content on Advani’s website, is preparing for a three-year law programme but plans to “continue to be associated with the BJP.” She counts her stint in Delhi as one of the “defining experiences” of her life.

A former journalist who quit his job to work on Advani’s campaign, Swadesh Singh hopes to launch a website “to promote nationalist thought” even as he plans to enroll himself in a PhD programme.

Prodyut Bora, who along with Advani aide Sudheendra Kulkarni, oversaw the entire online campaign, is planning a yatra of his own “from Kanyakumari to New Delhi”.

Kulkarni, meanwhile, has just shifted to a modest two-room flat in Delhi’s Rajendra Nagar, a locality he shares with none other than former BJP general secretary K N Govindacharya who has his office-cum-residence there.