Lal Krishna Advani has been travelling at breakneck speed all over the country over the past few weeks to promote his autobiography, My Country My Life, which has been as good as the launch pad for his election campaign too, one reckons.

There is a business end to publishing which even Advani has to acknowledge and honour. On the other hand his life’s business has been politics, and the timing of the book’s release suggests that the veteran leader has his sights set already beyond the balance sheet of his publisher— on the electorate of India.

Am I being presumptuous or cynical? Going purely by schedule, there is more than a year still for the next general elections. But pundits who earn their livelihood following these things believe that the country could go to the polls as early as October this year. In any case, a head start helps in any endeavour —perhaps even more so when you aspire to become prime minister of India at age 82.

It’s not that others in the political space have been snoozing, of course. Advani’s main rivals are drawn from the two segments that most pollsters anticipate will play a decisive role in the next elections. One is a young 36-year-old from the country’s oldest (some would argue, moribund) party who also wears a surname with the strongest brand recall in Indian politics still. The other is a feisty 50-something woman who heads a young party of the underprivileged which has made the most dramatic progress by any in free India.

Both Rahul Gandhi and Mayawati have also got off the blocks, however unobtrusively, as the major vote-catchers for their respective parties. Yet, that is not the extent of the challenge for Advani—or indeed the aforementioned two. Regional satraps carry massive vote banks with them, and could be major spoilers or kingmakers to the three main parties.

Moreover, as in current Indian cricket where the age factor has been trumped up beyond sense or sensibility, this could, I think, become a recurring theme even in the elections. Is Advani too old to win the trust of a nation which has 65 per cent of its population under-35? Does he still have the grip over the public imagination that he did in the early 90s?

His selection as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate bespeaks his stature, but also the bankruptcy in the party to find new leaders who can connect with the people. Yet, Advani looms large on the country’s political firmament, and what he says and does over the next year or so could well determine how he and his party fare in the next elections.

At a personal level, I have been intrigued by Advani. He loves cricket and cinema, which makes him a ‘level’ sort of guy. In private company, he is modest to a fault and speaks with the voice of reason.

As information and broadcasting minister in the Janata government, he was seen as liberal and progressive. His commitment to his party and politics in general is unimpeachable. Moreover, lately, he has even been willing to take an unpopular stand within his own party, as in his statements about Mohammed Ali Jinnah, which shows a man of conviction.

But what still rankles is the unusually hard-line role he played leading up to the demolition of the Babri Masjid. In many statements since, Advani has confessed that this was not what he had wanted and left him sad. The issue is, if he didn’t want it, why did he let it happen? Was he not aware of the debilitating influence that this would have on the nation, or was he simply obsessed by the pursuit of power?

These are some questions that, I suspect, will haunt Advani through the last lap of his political life. After all, to paraphrase the title of his book, this may have been his life, but this is also my country.