India's main opposition party, still in shock at its surprise defeat in last month's election, elected former Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani as its new leader in parliament on Tuesday.
Former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, 79, was elected chairman of the Bharatiya Janata Party, but is expected to take a more backseat role after turning down the post Advani took.
"We have elected Vajpayee as chairman of the parliamentary party," BJP president Venkaiah Naidu said. "L.K. Advani will be our leader in the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament)."
But the broader question of where the Hindu nationalist BJP goes from here remains unanswered.
"It's a question they don't even know the answer to," said Vinod Mehta, editor of the weekly magazine Outlook. "They are utterly and totally confused and traumatized by this defeat."
Riding on the "feel-good" factor of a booming economy and improved ties with old foe Pakistan, the BJP was the overwhelming favorite to win the election, only to be swept away by Sonia Gandhi's Congress party.
Advani has already admitted the BJP campaign motto "India shining" may have backfired, alienating large sections of the rural and urban poor excluded from the economic opportunities enjoyed by the middle class.
But the post-mortem will also have to examine whether the BJP's traditional message of hardline Hinduism -- set aside this time in favor of a platform of moderation and good governance -- remains a vote-winner.
Vajpayee was the standard-bearer for the BJP's moderate wing, and played a key role in building and sustaining a broad coalition government during his five-year rule.
As Vajpayee's star wanes, hardliners are already arguing that the BJP should return to the militant Hindu themes that first brought it to prominence in the 1990s, like the construction of a Hindu temple on the site of a razed 16th-century mosque.
"Generally the right sees only one way to go when in trouble, and that is the temple route," said Mehta. "But the younger generation in the BJP is trying to resist this; they see the BJP's future as a center-right party devoted to good governance."
The election results were also a setback for the hardline cause, with their champion Narendra Modi losing six seats in the western state of Gujarat, scene of some of India's bloodiest clashes between Hindus and Muslims in 2002.
India's Supreme Court blamed Modi for looking the other way like a "modern-day Nero" while Hindu extremists raped and butchered Muslim women and children. Parts of the Indian electorate apparently felt the same way.
Modi survived calls for his resignation after the riots, when the BJP felt he remained a vote-winner. Today he faces calls to quit even from within his own party.
BJP hardliners were also wrong-footed after Gandhi shocked the nation and won its sympathy for renouncing the prime minister's role after winning the election.
After mounting a vicious campaign against her Italian origins -- with one BJP leader threatening to shave her head -- Gandhi's opponents ended up looking to many like graceless losers.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was