| In these last several weeks that have followed the election victories of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, the party is suffused with a new political energy. It is buoyed by the victory of its controversial icon iNarendra Modi in Gujarat and is wasting no time in converting these successes into crucial political capital before the Lok Sabha elections scheduled for next year. The Congress party, on the other hand, is shoving distinct signs of disorientation as a result of this political outcome, with a sense of listlessness clearly discernible in its approach. Such a fainthearted response is unwarranted and unbecoming of a party that seized the I high ground in the 2004 general election and exuberantly took up the reins of governance with the promise of bringing India back to its original moorings in secular democracy. |