But sometimes it is much more complex and subtle than that. Sometimes the very seeds of a party’s revival lie in the reasons and magnitude of its defeat. This was true of the BJP post-1984 and it could well happen in the case of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh despite the drubbing it received last week.

In the general elections of 1984 the Congress party won its biggest victory and the fledgling BJP was reduced to just two seats. It was not just the ignominious defeat but the reasons behind it that set the BJP leadership thinking. While the BJP had been trying to shed its Jan Sangh past, Indira Gandhi had started flirting with the ‘Hindu’ vote after her second coming. The tentative moves made by her became the central motif of Rajiv Gandhi’s election campaign when he raised the spectre of national disintegration at the hands of minority secessionism. The focus was on Sikh extremism and the assassination of his mother by her Sikh bodyguards. The killing of thousands of Sikhs in Delhi and other northern cities in November that year formed the macabre background to the Congress campaign.

While most people attributed the 1984 verdict to the ‘sympathy wave’, the saffron leadership realised it reflected something more fundamental. It indicated that the elusive ‘Hindu’ vote was actually in the making but instead of being acquired by a ‘Hindu’ party, it was being usurped by the Congress. That led to a complete overhaul of strategy and, under the leadership of L.K. Advani, the party embarked on an aggressive Hindutva journey.

... contd.