BJP' S PRIME Minister-in-waiting, LK Advani, hit the right buttons last week in an effort to give his personal campaign a leg-up. He had his memoirs released by former President APJ Abdul Kalam, who is – the way the BJP might calculate– a Muslim. On the occasion of Holi, he called on Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh whom he routinely reviles. Clearly, Advani is keen to appear prime ministerial, in the mould of Atal Behari Vajpayee.

It was always said of Vajpayee that though steeped in the ethos of the RSS, he had a small window open for sounds and smells from other terrains. It is this which gave the impression he was a man anyone could do business with. Advani's public relations moves have not always been a singular triumph. Remember his visit to Jinnah's mausoleum in Karachi and what he scribbled in the visitors' book? The country was flabbergasted and the RSS incensed. The BJP leader was obliged to execute a series of contortions to return to the RSS favour. That's the thing about the BJP. If the RSS won't adopt you as its child, you're sunk.

Advani's memoirs, as excerpted in the media, suggest however that he might have over-compensated for his Jinnah comments. He has come out in support of Narendra Modi's handling of the situation in Gujarat, in effect of the pogrom conducted on his watch, a matter on which the Supreme Court has had a good deal to say. The Gujarat CM offers Advani an electoral safe haven in his state. But in springing to Modi's defence in the manner he has, the BJP's prime ministerial hopeful may not have done himself any favours. Can you be relied on to defend the Constitution if you are easy about defending a pogrom?