New Delhi, Oct. 15: The BJP is not disappointed that the Congress-led government will continue in office longer than expected, with the crisis over the nuclear deal appearing to have blown over.

The party leadership is happy that it will face a much weaker Prime Minister and a discredited government.

The leaders have realised that snap polls might not have been beneficial for Opposition parties. The BJP wasn’t prepared, and the NDA was almost in tatters.

In an early election, issues such as the Ram setu and rising prices might not have hurt the Congress-led UPA as much as it would if the voting were held on schedule. Senior BJP leaders believe Manmohan Singh would have bolstered his image by calling the Left’s bluff on the nuke deal.

Now, he risks losing his credibility even among his middle-class supporters. “We always thought he was the weakest Prime Minister and he has proved it. Had he stuck to his guns and resigned, he would have got a mention in the footnote, if not in history. Now he will be forgotten like Gowda and Gujral,” a spokesperson said.

Leader of Opposition L.K. Advani felt the government could only go downhill. Other BJP leaders said the government’s credibility has been eroded in the face of new proof that it can’t withstand pressure.

“Life will not be normal for the government after it discards the deal. The strained relations with the Left can’t become fully cordial and the communists will mount greater pressure on other issues,” a BJP MP said.

The BJP also believes that the Prime Minister will not be allowed to bounce back in the months ahead since many in the Congress wanted to push him off centre stage.

“The Congress did not want an election on the nuclear issue with the Prime Minister. They would like to have Rahul Gandhi in focus,” a senior BJP leader said.

The dominant view among senior BJP leaders was that the Congress would like to project Rahul, not Singh, as its leader in the next election. They felt this could have been the reason why the Prime Minister backed down from the position he’d taken on the deal.

Some leaders suspect many in the Congress didn’t like Singh asserting his authority through interviews like the one in which he dared the Left to withdraw support.

Publicly, however, the BJP leaders were trying to send the message that even Sonia Gandhi surrendered to the Left.

BJP leaders have been trying to show Sonia as someone who went to the extent of dubbing the Left “enemies of development” at a Haryana rally but backed off to keep her party in power.