BJP meets to review performance

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The three-day conclave of India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party has begun in the northern city of Dehradun.

The three-day meeting will analyse the party's performance over the past year and draw up its future strategy.

The conclave is being seen as a warm-up exercise as the party prepares for next year's elections in three states.

But some analysts say the 26-year-old Hindu nationalist party is suffering from a leadership crisis and is struggling to remain relevant.

The past two-and-a-half years could at best be described as a period of turmoil for BJP.

The unexpected defeat in the 2004 general elections sent the party into a state of shock.

When the reality finally sank in, ideological contradictions, internal squabbles and dearth of ideas began to stare it in the face.

Confused

As it was struggling to find direction, controversies, scandals and open rebellions hit its image.

Dogged by its own problems, the BJP is finding it increasingly difficult to play the role of an effective opposition.

Ironical, considering that 20 of the party's 26 years in existence were spent in opposition at the federal level.

The BJP's failure to corner the government in Parliament or outside has not gone down too well with its voters.

The party cadre is also confused.

It doesn't know whether the BJP would pursue its strident Hindu nationalist line or broaden its base by reaching out to the minorities.

Many say the party leadership is ageing

Some analysts are already writing off BJP as a party of the past.

Writing in the Times of India, analyst Swapan Dasgupta says BJP during its five year rule - from 1999 to 2004 - "gave India a modicum of stability and good governance".

But, just in 28 months, he says, the BJP's political legacy has been dissipated.

"Confronted with one internal crisis after another, BJP has gone into a state of denial," he writes.

Mr Dasgupta says "a leadership crisis" is at the heart of the "party's dysfunctional incoherence".

'Ageing leadership'

"With an ageing leadership refusing to pass the baton to the next generation, the party has lurched from one bout of adventurism to another," he says.

Two of BJP's most public faces are former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and former party president LK Advani - both in their 80s.

Mr Dasgupta warns that the absence of a young leader has "created a dissonance between the BJP and India's below-30s who make up more than half of India's population".

The meeting is expected to deliberate on these issues.

The outcome of the three-day conclave would determine the party's strategy for upcoming elections in the numerically significant state of Uttar Pradesh - which sends the maximum number of 80 MPs - to Parliament than any other, and northern states of Uttaranchal and Punjab.

But more significantly, party cadre and supporters hope that their leaders would come up with an effective plan which would firm up its grip on voters and the Indian politics.