'Idiotic idea': Vajpayee opposed early polls in 2004, Chandrababu Naidu persuaded him, reveals book

Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee initially opposed advancing the 2004 general elections, dismissing the proposal as "idiotic," before being persuaded by his party colleagues and ally Chandrababu Naidu, according to a new book.

"The BJP held a national executive in Hyderabad, where it declared that the general elections would be advanced by six months. At first, Vajpayee was cold to the idea," writes Abhishek Choudhary in The Believer's Dilemma: A.B. Vajpayee and the Ascent of the Hindu Right. In private, the prime minister remarked, "Paagal hue hain ki chunaav pehle karayenge?"  

Vajpayee believed the BJP's state-level victories in December 2003 - in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh - were driven more by anti-incumbency and misgovernance than by a pro-BJP wave. "If the trend since 1998 was anything to go by, most ruling governments in states had been voted out after a term," Choudhary writes, adding that Vajpayee felt fiscal distress in states left little room for development, limiting political dividends.  

Party chieftains LK Advani, Venkaiah Naidu, and Pramod Mahajan, however, interpreted the mandate differently. Crucially, Naidu, then chief minister of Andhra Pradesh and the NDA's most significant ally, pressed for simultaneous elections to leverage Vajpayee's popularity. 

Naidu himself was politically vulnerable after surviving a Naxalite attack in which "his bulletproof car was hurled into the air and landed on its side. Naidu lost consciousness for two minutes, and suffered a fractured collarbone."  

Despite his doubts, Vajpayee allowed himself to be persuaded. In Hyderabad, he cleared the suspense, expressing hope that "a new government will be in place by the end of April." President APJ Abdul Kalam dissolved the Lok Sabha in early February.  

At the time, the Congress was demoralised, Sonia Gandhi's novelty was seen to have waned, and opinion polls predicted an easy BJP win. The BJP's campaign hinged on the "India Shining" slogan. Vajpayee highlighted economic successes, saying, "Now a vegetable vendor can afford a mobile phone."

Critics, including Outlook editor Vinod Mehta, conceded India had advanced significantly, with Mehta writing, "I did not think I would live to see the day when India 'steals' jobs from the United States."  

But challenges loomed. Choudhary notes that "much of rural India remained far from shining," with states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh lacking basic health centres, stagnant agriculture, and rising kerosene prices. Recognising this, the PMO soon replaced the slogan with 'Iraada Naye Bharat ka' - "Dreams for a New India." Vajpayee himself penned a poem promising to eradicate poverty and hunger in rural India.  

As the campaign wore on, signs of trouble emerged. At a rally in Lucknow alongside Advani on April 5, the Ambedkar Maidan was half-empty. A shaken Vajpayee confided to a colleague that the signs were "ominous" and that "they were probably going to lose." Later, after casting his vote in Lucknow, Vajpayee told his aide Shivkumar: "Sarkar toh gayi. Hum haar rahe hain." 

Polling day in Lucknow underscored the challenge: turnout was just 43 per cent. On May 12, as results trickled in, Vajpayee admitted on television that even decades after misjudging the public mood in 1955, he was "none wiser." The outcome was a fractured mandate: the BJP secured 138 seats to Congress' 145.    

That evening, Vajpayee drove in a white Ambassador, leaving aside the official BMWs, to Rashtrapati Bhavan to resign. In his televised address, he reflected: "It is for you and history to judge what we have achieved over the past six years. But India was more stable, politically and economically, than six years ago when I had taken office." Publicly, he accepted the verdict with grace: "My party and alliance may have lost, but India has won."