ROURKELA, June 21: Thousands waited for more than two hours at Badgaon, a cashew-growing village between Sundergarh and Rourkela. The old talked about the appeal of "Ram", the young about the Congress "eating up all the money" sanctioned for development in villages. As they waited for Bharatiya Janta Party president L K Advani's Swarna Jayanti Rath Yatra, they said they did not expect the Janata Dal in Orissa to last after Biju Patnaik. Most of them were there to have a fresh look at the BJP and what Advani had to offer.

The change of mood was visible not just in the villagers, but in the man they were awaiting as well. The present yatra, for Advani, is the search for a new role. In some ways, the notes he is striking are reminiscent of Jayaprakash Narayan in 1973, before the Bihar movement -- though JP was not involved in party politics unlike Advani, and though their ideologies differed. Unconsciously, Advani may be trying to recapture the moral high-ground which he lost due to the Jain-hawala case.

It is a more reflective, in some ways sad, elder statesman atop the Swarna Jayanti Rath today in place of the fire-spitting leader whose yatra seven years ago brought down the government of V P Singh, gave the BJP its present profile and changed the parameters of north Indian politics.

Advani's speeches on his latest yatra -- he has been on the road in a Tata 709 truck converted into a chariot for 8,500 kms and for over a month now -- are not political in the accepted sense. Most of the time, he is not gunning for his political rivals, except his recent comments on Laloo Prasad Yadav and his criticism of the Digvijay Singh government's apathy towards the Jabalpur earthquake victims.

He comes across more as a teacher as he reminds his audiences of the sacrifices of the heroes of the freedom struggle. That includes Gandhi, Tilak and Bose. And he is trying appropriate the legacy of the Congress. For it is the Congress, with its 112-year history, which should have taken the initiative to celebrate fifty years of freedom, even if the government was slow on the uptake. Advani admits the yatra ``has a political purpose'' which is to augment the BJP's credibility, and show it is different from the other parties.

But he also exhorts his audiences to examine where ``we ourselves have gone wrong'' in the last 50 years to bring the country to this state ``where we have either given or taken bribes,'' and how ``we treat our daughters differently from our sons in our homes.'' The BJP chief is not a candidate for prime ministership as and when his party is able to form a government, even though the court has discharged him in the Jain-hawala case. Two years ago, he announced in Mumbai that Atal Behari Vajpayee would be the party's choice for Prime Minister and, still, there is no ambiguity about this in the BJP today. At the end of this year, Advani will give up the party presidentship, having completed the two terms allowed by the BJP constitution.

Advani admits, ``I have not decided yet what role I should play.'' About entering the Lok Sabha? ``No, that is a minor matter,'' he says, but denies he is thinking of quitting politics.

The response to the yatra both in Madhya Pradesh and Orissa, where this writer trailed it, was enthusiastic, though for different reasons. The welcome in Raipur in Chhatisgarh, with women performing aartis, youth bursting crackers, people waiting by the wayside, and the Gandhi maidan jampacked even at midnight was the result of an organisation that the party has in the state. But, while there was enthusiasm and crowds, the atmosphere was not charged as it had been with the Ram rath yatra. In Orissa, where the organisation is a fledgling one, the response was more spontaneous, right from Sohella where the rath entered Orissa at night to Sambalpur where there was a huge crowd waiting at 1 am. The yatra, no doubt, was breaking new ground for the party in the state.

The yatra, which is to cover West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir before culminating in New Delhi on July 15, is rehabilitating Advani in the eyes of his partymen, lifting the hawala cloud that had hung over his head for a year-and-a-half. No wonder, then, that the slogan is back to ``Atal Advani kamal nishan, maang raha hai Hindustan'' from last year's ``Ab ki baari Atal Behari.''

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.