My take on BJP's Loss

Hours before the results were formally declared, the BJP headquarters at the Ashoka road in New Delhi and L.K Advani's residence were deserted , they knew they lost it. BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said that probably the choice of candidates was wrong, but is there more to it...

If we go through the results, the BJP did not face as big a loss as perceived, last time they had 132 seats in the parilament and now 122, it's only a loss of only 10 seats. so the congress' gain of 60 odd seats from last time isnt from the BJP's loss. Congress ate a chunk of seats from the Third front's pie; especially with left losing more than 40 seats in the states of West Bengal and Kerala. With no seat split in these states, affected BJP enormously.

May 16, 2009 BJP announced their exit poll results, it read 166 seats for BJP and NDA's tally of 212 seats india wide; a gain of 45 seats from the last time. But the three states that disappointed L.K Advani from becoming the next prime minister of India were Rajasthan, Maharashtra and the big state of U.P.

The infighting among Vasundhara Raje Scindia co and Jaswant Singh in Rajasthan was key to this dismal performance of 4/29 in the state. The 26/11 attacks, poor industrial development and rising farmer suicides; there was so much against the Congress NCP led government in Maharashtra that BJP SS could not capitalize, primiarly due to their poor campaigning.

And now, the big state of Uttar Pradesh that occupies more than 15% of LoK Sabha. Narendra Modi, often represented as the poster boy by the electronic media ( the media also played a imp role in the loss of BJP in the urban metros by flashing the hate speeches and by mis representing the ideology of the party** the media ll in another note) played a key role in restricting the BJP's tally in the state to mere 11 . Modi campaigned in 33 constituences in U.P out of which only 3 constituencies went to BJP. The biggest lesson forthe BJP from this is that the Modi factor is only confined to Gujarat and he has no appeal nationally.

The BJP also acknowledged that its campaign based on the two issues (1) personal remarks on the PM Manmohan Singh calling him a 'weak prime minister" (2) price rise issue; did not resonate with the voter.
Inflation was down to less than 2% by the time we went to vote and the party's effort to play the L.K Advani as a decisive strong leader with full page newspaper advertisements, posters & links on major websites didn't pay off either. The largest question that needs to be asked here is; how badly is BJP missing their stalwart leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

However, the three states that saved the BJP from a bigger disappointment was the states of Karnataka, Gujarat and ofcourse Bihar (alliance with Nithish's JDU).

Its time for introspection within the party's top cadre on the issues of leadership, strategy and campaigning techniques before they chart out their path/plan ahead.
Hope BJP bounces back in the next elections; this may not be your personal wish but at least for the sake of a healthy democracy in this diverse nation.