But we have heard those languages before. The big question is, what is that magic countrywide idiom that the BJP will reinvent. Four years ago, the party was taught a lesson: this country is too big and too wise to digest a glossy, feel-good campaign. A no-holds-barred Hindutva language may have lost the novelty it possessed in the nineties. Aatankvaad is definitely part of the political discourse in metros and small towns but its importance may ebb unless there are more blasts during the run-up to polls. L.K. Advani’s recent lacklustre speech in Jabalpur exposed his lack of conviction in a single, emotive issue.

The former charioteer is now looking for ways to give the BJP a final push beyond its existing frontiers in the west and the north. He is keenly aware that later this year, his party’s energy will be spent on the seemingly impossible mission of defending its turf in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The momentum will shift to the Congress. The party had tried out the limited successful formulae of ‘Ours is an untested nationalist party’ in 1998 and ‘Give us a better mandate after the Jayalalithaa betrayal and the Kargil War’ in 1999 but those campaign templates had historical and political contexts that are no longer relevant.

It’s a curious situation. We have started talking about a general election but we do not know the campaign language and its metaphors. Finally, the Union government and its seat of power in Delhi are staring at political irrelevance.

... contd.