New Delhi: The BJP's humiliation in the elections has sparked off a blame game and a search for a successor to L.K. Advani.

Advani was the party's prime ministerial candidate and the man BJP venerated till a few days ago, but is now being squarely blamed for the debacle. Moreover, some candidates have alleged that they lost because the elections were sabotaged by "state leaders close to Advani". The party's Rajathan unit is agog with such talk.

Since he has understood the mood within the party, Advani is perhaps wise in insisting that the BJP choose someone else as its leader. The leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha had indicated in the past that he wanted to retire. Since Atal Behari Vajpayee is already gone and the Advani era drawing to an end, it is time for the next rung to take over the party's reins.

Unless Advani relents, the BJP is likely to choose between Jaswant Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi and Sushma Swaraj as the leader of opposition, Rajnath Singh is out of consideration since he is the party president and is lobbying for another term even if that requires amending the party constitution.

A war of succession is likely to follow and, given the level of rivalry within the BJP, it could turn ugly. If Advani has his way, Sushma Swaraj would be the leader of opposition. She has a good understanding of parliamentary procedures and is a better orator than her rivals.

Besides she enjoys the advantage of Advani's support, something that cannot be said for Rajnath Singh or Joshi. The latter does not have too many friends in the BJP's central establishment but he has good ties with Narendra Modi. Besides, Joshi might be backed by the RSS. In this case, Jaswant Singh, leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha, could be a compromise candidate.

There's also the question of the next top leader in the party to replace Advani. Modi's unacceptability to allies and to large parts outside Gujarat renders him inappropriate, leaving the tussle reduced to one primarily between Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj. Venkaiah Naidu is another possibility, unless some other leader from one of the states is brought in.

While the party goes through this, it would also need to do a relook of what it stands for. It was Advani who put the BJP at the centrestage of national politics, leading the Hindutva campaign and the Ayodhya movement that culminated in the destruction of the Babri mosque in 1992.

Once the NDA came to power with Vajpayee as PM, the compulsions of coalition politics put Hindutva on the backburner.

During the long drawn out campaign, the party sent out mixed signals, sometimes swearing by Gandhian ideals, at other times reinforcing its obscurantist Hindutva image with defence of Hindu terrorism, anti-Christian violence.

Advani spared no effort to reach out to every corner of the country, travelling almost a lakh kilometres, addressing meetings in sweltering heat and keeping up a punishing schedule. The octogenarian even lifted weights and pitched himself in cyberspace. His backroom boys worked round the clock, while the BJP leader interacted with young and first-time voters on his website.

The party's strategy of projecting Advani as strong while attacking the PM as "weak" did not appeal to voters. The attempts to highlight Hindutva issues also put off the electorate.

At the same time, the BJP would also need to evolve and adapt itself to an updated ideological line wherein "right wing" would not be distinguished from "centrist" merely by its stand on emotive issues, religions and communities.

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