The party’s tallest leader drops out of race for prime minister’s job to pave way for the GenNext. It’s a story tinged with irony.

The generational shift in the BJP’s top leadership is complete. It’s over to the GenNext now.

The old guard, once represented by the towering trio of Atal Behari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, had started withdrawing from the front line for some time now. With Advani’s announcement that he is out of the race for the prime minister’s job, the process is practically over. Vajpayee is already out of the party’s scheme of things and Joshi has reduced himself to a marginal player.

The baton passes to the second line of the top leadership represented by Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Narendra Modi.

"From the RSS, to the Jan Sangh and to the BJP, I am happier to be a part of the party. I do not want to become the prime minister," Advani said after meeting Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat in Nagpur on Wednesday. He said the party and his supporters have given him much more than what the prime minister’s job would do.

The announcement, however, does not mean the BJP stalwart will be out of the thick of political action. He will be starting his anti-corruption yatra on 11 October, a move loaded with political implications. It will re-establish his position as the party’s only leader with mass appeal that transcends states.

In case the NDA manages to do well in 2014 elections, he could still emerge as a compromise candidate for the combine. The current heavyweight Narendra Modi has the problem of acceptability—important allies like the JD(U) are strongly opposed to him—and Sushma and Jaitley do not come across as leaders with wide appeal among the coalition partners.

The developments carry a tinge of irony though.

The party’s biggest leader after Vajpayee and the man responsible for making the BJP what it is today had to abandon his prime ministerial ambition under rather unhappy circumstances. Known for his intellectual clarity and sense of vision, Advani was undone by both these attributes.

He did not have the ability to obfuscate like Vajpayee. He did not make open-ended statements which remained free to interpretations either. In more blunt words, he was earnest, sincere, and intelligent but in the end not clever enough as a political operator.

It started with the RSS. The poster boy of hardline Hindutva and the darling of the Sangh Parivar for his role in the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation. Advani ran foul with the mother organisation after calling Mohammad Ali Jinnah secular during his visit to Karachi in 2005. He turned into a persona non grata in the Sangh Parivar and within the BJP. He had to quit as party president.

Things never stayed the same for the party’s tallest leader after that. He still remained a powerful voice in the party, but just a voice. The leader was buried successfully by the party and the RSS.

His announcement a few days ago to go on an anti-corruption rath yatra set the cat among the pigeons. Many in the party were worried. They smelt a conspiracy by the man to foist himself as the party’s prime ministerial candidate for the next general elections. Advani denied the insinuation vehemently but there were not too many buyers.

The Modi fast was the last straw. It did not project the Gujarat chief minister as the prime ministerial candidate but it served to signal a change in the party’s pecking order. It conveyed clearly that Modi is the force on the ascendant. Advani did not matter anymore; he should chuck his ambitions.

He got the message. His visit to the RSS headquarters was symbolic of the end of a dream.

It all started there. He was ending it there.

It’s over to the next generation now.