Analysis: After Vajpayee what?

WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- The announcement by former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee that he will not seek re-election marks the end of an era in the nation's politics and places his Hindu nationalist party at a crossroads.

Vajpayee took the Bharatiya Janata Party from relative obscurity to the apex of Indian politics. From taking the party to an unexpected election win in 1998 and an equally startling defeat in 2004, Vajpayee shocked the world by conducting nuclear tests in 1998, coming close to war with Pakistan in 2001 and then beginning a rapprochement with Islamabad. During that time, he also took India from a middling regional power to a global economic, diplomatic and political heavyweight, and was criticized by the international community for his government's handling of bloody anti-Muslim riots in the state of Gujarat.

"I will not fight elections," Vajpayee, 81, told supporters at rally late Thursday in Bombay marking the BJP's 25th anniversary. "I will not indulge in power politics any more."

The announcement shocked the party, which is India's leading opposition group, and supporters are reported to have chanted: "Please don't go."

Although he is expected to stay active in party politics as an elder statesman until the next elections in 2009, Vajpayee's departure leaves the BJP fractured and in need of new blood if it is to regain the support it had in the 1990s. His No. 2 in the party, L.K. Advani, widely recognized as a hawk, saw his star fall when during a visit to Pakistan he praised that nation's founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah, as a secular leader. Hindu nationalists hold Jinnah responsible for the division of India into two countries - India and Pakistan. The comments not only forced an apology from Advani but also sidelined him. The former deputy prime minister was expected to step down as party chief over the weekend.

The two men had taken the BJP from an unknown entity into a major force but much of the emerging leadership is unpopular among the party's rank and file. The older generation of the party was known for its discipline and fervent Hindu nationalism; many of the new members are politicians ready to cut a deal and not a few are known to be corrupt.

Some of those divisions came to the fore soon after Vajpayee announced his departure. In his remarks, he anointed Advani and Pramod Mahajan, a younger leader, as his successors. But Advani is due to step down Saturday, paving the way for another leader, Rajnath Singh, to step in.

"But even before Singh takes over the knives are out in the party's second rung," NDTV news said on its Web site. "Winning the cooperation of the ambitious rivals will be his greatest challenge."

And in a bid to capture the party's old ground the BJP leaders at the conference said they would champion the two causes that brought them into the political mainstream in the first place - a temple for the Hindu god Ram at a disputed site where a historic mosque once stood; and a uniform civil code for all Indians.

Those issues are likely to tug at the heart strings of all Hindu nationalists. In India, Muslims can follow sharia law, a privilege the community is loath to give up and one that the Hindu nationalists want to take away. The temple was the campaign pledge that propelled the BJP to power in the 1990s and though its supporters succeeded in demolishing the 16th century Babri mosque, its leaders were unable to deliver their promise of a temple.

The BJP ruled India in a coalition government and its allies would not back either position. With its support dwindling it's unclear whether the party can capture some of the old magic, but this time enough to make it a single-party government. The other problem the BJP faced while in power was the problem of democracy.

Despite overseeing a great economic expansion and improving India's image in the West it was unable to dole out those benefits to India's poorest, many of whom had at first supported the BJP. That led to the party's loss in the 2004 elections.

To be able to capture power successfully, it will need more than nationalist rhetoric. And without Vajpayee, the man seen as the moderate face of the party, that will be a hard task.