On the eve of India's 2004 election the Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp) looked to have completed its evolution from a bunch of Hindu leftist and Islamophobic oddballs into a right-leaning party of government. After winning elections in 1998 and 1999, the bjp had run a stable, somewhat-reformist coalition government. Its prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, a witty Hindu nationalist and poet, famed for his oratory, was India's most popular politician. The economy was booming. The main opposition, the Congress party, after a decade of feuding and longer decline, was a mess. The future, for most pundits, looked saffron.
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