... Advani ... himself could not resist boasting that his party would repeat its Lucknow performance, first in Gandhinagar and then in New Delhi. But the 'domino' theory clearly did not work.

The failure in Gandhinagar did not deter the BJP from trying even harder in New Delhi when trouble arose for the Gujral Government.

Advani himself claimed ... immediately after his meeting with the President ... that "40 Congress MPs" were willing to form a separate group but this could not be formalised as under the anti-defection law a minimum of 47 MPs were needed for a lawful split. Of course, no one in the BJP has any explanation that three days after the dissolution of the Lok Sabha, when there is no constraint of numbers, why the "unhappy Congress" MPs are not coming out of their party of forming a separate group or joining the BJP.

The BJP's desperation ... was so great that ... party leaders such as Advani and Vajpayee risked their personal reputations to virtually encourage defection from the Congress ... Shorn of even the delusion of a moral veneer, the BJP, like the Emperor in the Hans Christian Andersen fable, stands naked ...                                                      (Source: The Hindu, 7 December, 1997)