BJP takes out its twin shock absorbers: Rome & Ram

She said her appeal to ‘‘brother’’ Amar Singh, whose Samajwadi Party is willing to join a Congress-led government, was to create ‘‘whatever hurdles’’ to stop Sonia.

Calling a press conference, she announced: ‘‘It will indeed be sad if a foreigner becomes our prime minister. There’s a big difference between becoming an Indian citizen and being an Indian.’’

Echoing Bharti was Ram Madhav of the RSS: ‘‘It will be a disgrace to the nation if the Congress along with retrograde Communist parties tries to foist an Italian as Prime Minister on the country. No self-respecting Indian will tolerate this humiliation.’’

The RSS plans to mobilise public opinion against Sonia’s foreign origin, calling themselves ‘‘nationalist’’ and her an ‘‘Italian.’’ Madhav said the Congress and Left ‘‘cheated’’ the country by not declaring in advance that they would make Sonia the PM.

In Mumbai, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray admonished the BJP: ‘‘They were intoxicated after the victories in the Assembly polls and took a gamble by declaring early polls.’’

‘‘Jab election aaya to Ram ka naam liya aur rath yatra nikala. (As elections approached, they brought out the Rath and began chanting ‘Ram’). You cannot fool the people,’’ he said.

For someone who had declared that his party would launch a sustained protest if Congress president Sonia Gandhi was made the Prime Minister, Thackeray ducked a query on the subject.

‘‘What protest,’’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. But he couldn’t resist a dig at Sonia, saying she could not hold a candle to Indira Gandhi. ‘‘There is no comparison. Indira Gandhi was much better.’’

In Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh BJP president Vinay Katiyar, among the losers, told The Indian Express that the BJP did wrong in diluting Hindutva and talking about development.

‘‘For the first time, a political party fought elections on the development plank. We raised serious issues and slogans concerning development, but there were no takers. People still fancy chatpata (spicy) slogans.’’

‘‘We did not raise the Hindutva issues like Ayodhya, gau hatya and national security, and that’s why we failed to win this time,’’ Katiyar said.

The former Bajrang Dal leader has no illusions about his defeat. ‘‘The development mantra has failed miserably for me as well as for the party. This mantra was beyond the comprehension of people. They are still tuned to old-time slogans.’’

Katiyar cited the BJP’s victory in Gorakhpur as an example: ‘‘Can you ignore what happened in Gorakhpur? Adityanath won by over 1 lakh votes and he fought on the Hindutva plank.’’