It’s like ’84, we didn’t see it coming: Advani

They were surprised, he admitted. The final outcome was so ‘‘unexpected and uncalculated’’ that nobody saw it coming — neither the newspapers nor the pollsters or even the party members themselves, Advani said. ‘‘I can only compare these results to those of the 1984 elections.’’ The BJP had only managed to get two seats in the post-Indira Gandhi assassination election then.

The central party board meeting held in the morning at Atal Behari Vajpayee’s residence echoed the view of the results being a fractured verdict, while refusing to pinpoint individual responsibility.

BJP president M. Venkaiah Naidu told reporters that there was no question of any leader, including Pramod Mahajan, owning moral responsibility. ‘‘This is not our tradition,’’ he contended. ‘‘We are an ideological party, not a family, and all our decisions are collective.’’

He also turned down the demand for ouster of Narendra Modi and J. Jayalalithaa, saying those who made such calls must make their stand clear on the continuation of Kerala Chief Minister A.K. Antony.

The Lok Sabha verdict, Naidu said, was divided across states and pointed out that the Congress and Communists had fought against each other in several places.

Naidu also did not agree with the VHP view that the BJP lost due to dilution of the Hindutva agenda.

Advani said that the BJP had mainly focused on performance of the government in its campaign, and that ‘‘though local issues prevailed, the verdict does reflect on performance of the government to some extent’’.

The results of the recent Assembly elections in four states—Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi—were repeated in the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP leader pointed out. Taking this as a defence, Advani also justified the decision to hold early elections, noting that six months down the line, the results even in the three states which voted BJP to power may have been different.

Asked if the decision to go in for an alliance with the AIADMK was a mistake, Advani said he didn’t think so. He added that the party would be doing a detailed, state-by-state analysis of the defeat.

As for the post of the Leader of the Opposition, Advani wouldn’t confirm if he would be assuming it. While Vajpayee has indicated he wanted to retire from active politics, Advani said the honour was reserved for the outgoing PM. Naidu parried queries on the issue in his usual manner: ‘‘Let there be position (a government) before the Opposition.’’