Narendra Modi blunts LK Advani's latest jibe by owning it, reminds BJP veteran that timing is everything

LK Advani’s blog, which caused the Opposition to shed copious amount of crocodile tears in public and much mirth in private, is the sad case of a patriarch refusing to accept the reality of his superannuation and raging against the dying of light. The new middle class, described in this piece in The Times of India as “a neo-Hindu middle class that combines livelihood in the ‘modern’ professions and a commitment to technology with an adherence to traditional values and robust nationalism, has emerged and grown in self-confidence,” could have been more appreciative of the work that Advani did to expand the party base from two seats in 1984 to 282 in 2014. Right from 2013, when he played the resignation card as a last-ditch attempt to stall Modi’s rise within the party and projection of the Gujarat chief minister as the NDA’s prime ministerial face in 2014, Advani has always fought a bitter mind game with the party he built from scratch. It was a clamour from within the party that entrusted Advani with BJP’s campaign in 2009 only to see him fail again as Manmohan Singh-led UPA retained power. Modi put paid to Advani’s hopes of causing whatever little discomfort that he intended to by playing from the front foot and owning Advani’s sharpest jibe, thereby blunting its effectiveness.