Advani was so selfless once upon a time that he has suo moto declared AB Vajpayee as a prime ministerial candidate in the year 1995 at the BJP's National plenary meeting in Mumbai even though the chances were even for both of them and without even consulting Vajpayee much to his surprise. A self styled iron man grown from the grass root levels of Jan sangh a political wing of RSS and spent so much of his energy in bringing BJP to power in 1996,1998,1999-2004 and also spotted a young and dynamic leaders in BJP at state levels but of late he is bending backwards completely. There was never a Vajpayee as PM without the astute organizational skills of LK Advani and the hard core hintutvawadi in him prior to 1996.
Let me try to analyze what propelled LK Advani to do and go otherway. I see several reasons,first is that after seeing AB Vajpayee's acceptability as Prime Minister of india amongst allies,media and across the party lines ever since the departure of PV Narasimha Rao from politics with rudderless sitaram kesari taking over congress in 1996 Advani has lost the conviction in what all he believed all these years i.e. Hindutva.At the same time he is under the impression that NDA(BJP) lost the mandate in 2004 because of hindutva despite the good governance.I would say yes BJP did good work and yes that BJP should not have lost in 2004, but they failed to judge the root cause of their failure. Firstly the NDA came to power with two powerful allies in south india i.e. DMK in Tamil Nadu(39 MP seats) and TDP in Andhra Pradesh(42 MP seats) and it is because of the DMK jumping from NDA(BJP alliance) to UPA(congress alliance ) due to POTA(Anti terrorism ordinance brought by BJP but Jayalalitha used it on Vaiko for supporting LTTE) in TN and anti incumbency in AP for TDP the BJP lost in center, Also chandrababu Naidu the CEO of AP won his election directly only once in 1999(remember TDP split vertically because of fissures in NTR family in 1995 September) only when he was allied with BJP but now he says sorry to minorities for supporting BJP from 1999-04, That is a different story i am not going to talk about folly statement of Naidu right now. LK Advani was surrounded and brain washed by the pseudo liberals who holds no ideological baggage with BJP like Brajesh Mishra,Surendra Kulkarni etc. Remember Brajesh Mishra's close association with Gandhi family err Nehru family and also Surendra Kularni was the one who spearheaded Advani's PM campaign in 2009.
LK Advani faux pas and flip-flops started with khandahar Hijack , He said that he was not aware and would have opposed release of Terrorists in exchange with 154 passengers in IC 814 hijacked by terrorists from Katmandu to Kandahar,However his cabinet colleagues yashwanth sinha and Arun shourie contested that statement by saying that Advani was aware of all plans to release terrorists in exchange, The second instance when iron man flip flopped was on Babri Masjid when he said that Babri Masjid's demolition was his saddest day of life (even more than the partition bloodshed of india-pakistan in 1947 when advani's family took flight from karachi to delhi?), Did Advani not spear headed Ram Janmbhoomi movement? Third comes his in infamous praise on Jinnah the hate figure responsible for partition of india,Advani said that Jinaah was secular when he went to karachi and latter gave a rejoinder that he was quoted out of context, Enough damage to his image was done by then and by the way the Jinaah speech was drafted by none other than Surendra Kulkarni who was also the king pin in cash for votes scam for which the Manmohan singh government survived no-confidence motion in 2008 after communists withdraw support to UPA after the indo-US nuclear deal.
All the sequences of these flip flops unfolded by Advani made the cadre and the traditional voters believe that he has subverted the ideology and basic DNA of hindutva and subsequently he lost the credibility and he was never an iron man which he claimed all the years before BJP came to power. Even recently LK Advani has displayed the pictures with Parvez Musharaff (who has blood of indian soldiers during kargil war) on campaigning van of anti-corruption campaign he took in 2011 with the perception to impress minority vote bank and guess what ? It was surendra kulkarni leading his campaign again.In his latest speech in BJP's plenary session in Surajkund, Haryana Advani was lamenting for secularism and the urge for BJP to discard hindtuva and take a so called secularism stand of congress so that more allies will embrace BJP. LK Advani should realize that he is a spent force and never had conviction in his agenda, Imagine the fate of people if the leader like him is not sure about what he is talking. Also BJP should never try to be a congress that will make it as a B team of congress. I see the only future for BJP is Narenda Modi! Modi is the one who needs to be backed as he believes in what he preaches at least BJP would have been a formidable opposition had Dr Subramanian swamy was in BJP as opposition. Hindutva with inclusiveness for all religions,castes and appeasement to none is the antidote for BJP and i am sure like Gujarat BJP will gain the votes of minorities after coming to power if they live on their word of nationalism,Hindutva and inclusion for all sects. After all allies will come running if BJP have good numbers to form the government like 1999. The Behavior of Advani is like "me or no one for PM " at the moment.He also blogged that neither BJP nor congress having a clear edge forming a government in 2014 and the third front has a good chance. In a way he has agreed that he is not a convincing face for the voters to win 2014 elections for BJP.This octogenarian who was once an asset has now become a liability.