It can be nobody’s case that L.K. Advani lacks political intellect, guile or commitment. For three-and-a-half decades now since he arrived on the national centrestage with his arrest, and then elevation as Information and Broadcasting Minister in the first non-Congress (Janata Party) government in 1977, he has been one of the most prominent success stories of our politics. He has been one of the few truly self-made leaders to have attained such a high position, which is particularly remarkable because unlike many others, Morarji Desai, Chandra Shekhar, V.P. Singh and even Mamata Banerjee, he did not use the Congress fast-track ever. In so many ways, he is truly an original. Nobody who could resurrect a party from the train-wreck of the Janata in 1980 and then lift it from two seats in 1984 to nearly 200 in 1999 and to national power for six years can be written off by history.

Yet, you’d wonder why we are using the expression “has been” so many times even as we list out his many positive attributes and successes. Even the finest political minds do not get their instinct right all the time. This is particularly so when it comes to choosing a time to call it a day. Advani missed his moment to bow out honourably when the 2009 election results came. He offered to quit but then allowed those around him, the same cynical coterie that he should hold responsible for so brutally damaging his image and political legacy, to “persuade” him to hang on. Hang on to, and for, what, they didn’t tell him and, it seems, he did not bother to ask. The bid for prime ministership over forever, it was entirely up to him to earn a well-deserved farewell in dignity. His CV for a half-century in political life would have still been formidable. But he did not, and has brought himself to this pass now, when he is accused of lying by one of his closest associates, of having his memory fail him and of being weak by his many partymen.

... contd.