Over confidence, India Shining Causes for 2004 loss; Advani

In Retrospect: Bharatiya Janata Party stalwart and NDA prime ministerial opeful, LK Advani on Monday said the NDA had suffered a loss in the 2004 general elections due to “over confidence” and slogans such as India Shining. He was addressing a conference of the BJP traders’ cell in New Delhi.

He, however, justified the upbeat mood in party by saying that after six years in power and having performed well under the leadership of prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, NDA was confident of forming the government.

“The impression even among the opponents and foreign analysts was that we will win….but we lost…One, due to overconfidence and secondly, using some wrong slogans like India Shining…,” he said.

Advani said the slogan was used by BJP opponents who asked voters to judge if India was really shining.

“Our opponents went to the people and asked them if their homes were shining…Everybody has his own problems…There is so much poverty in the country, farmers have their problems… they said where is India shining?” he questioned.

Lampooning the Congress-led UPA, Advani said they won the 2004 polls with the support of the common man. “Five years down the line, we get reports that so many Indians have become billionaires. On the other hand, Indian Statistical Institute has said the number of people below the poverty line has gone up to 5.5 crore from 3.5 crore in the last five years,” he said.