In the byzantine world of Indian officialdom, it is the underlings who develop the sharpest antenna. Last week, as L.K. Advani walked into his North Block office, he detected a small-but, in the context of a hierarchical society, significant-change. The brass plate outside his room had changed. From L.K. Advani, Home Minister, it now read L.K. Advani, Deputy Prime Minister. It was a modification that rubbed off on the telephone operators at 30 Prithviraj Road. From the informal "Advaniji's residence" that greeted callers, it has now become the more officious "Deputy prime minister's residence".

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It wasn't the babus alone who detected a shift. West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya-he is part of a mutual admiration duo with Advani-met the deputy prime minister on July 4 to discuss the Howrah-Hajipur railway tangle. Two days later, an all-party delegation from West Bengal met him and Railways Minister Nitish Kumar at a joint sitting. The next day, the deputy prime minister chaired an all-party meeting on the Election Commission's new notifications. Previously, meetings of this nature would definitely have involved the prime minister.

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HIS NEW ROLE MANAGE COALITION: Reduce discord among NDS partners and prepare ground for Election 2004. FIRE-FIGHTING: Steer Government through Parliament and negotiate flashpoints with the Opposition. HANDLE RSS: Play linkman with Sangh, ward off RSS interference in BJP and Government. POLICY ROLE: Influence thinking on Kashmir and Pakistan. Fine-tune internal security and political strategy. GLOBAL PROFILE: Poised for bigger role, will be a standby to Vajpayee for diplomatic assignments.

Advani's explanation that the clash over the railway zones was actually a Centre-state problem and, therefore, concerned his ministry, is ingenious but can't obfuscate the real change that followed the June 29 elevation. It was much more than a de-facto situation being converted into a de-jure reality. From being cast as the rival power centre-and thus the object of salacious speculation-Advani was transformed into the dynamo of an enlarged power base that incorporated both him and A.B. Vajpayee. To use a corporate analogy, now there was not only a benign patriarch as chairman, but also a hands-on CEO on the board. And they were complementing each other.

In the case of Advani, the promotion was more than symbolic. It was, in effect, Vajpayee's resounding vote of trust in a colleague who had been a loyal team player, who had steadfastly refused to allow personal preferences to get in the way of corporate loyalty and who had denied the prophets of doom the perverse pleasure of a rift at the top. In the eyes of sceptics, the new deputy prime minister was a public admission of Vajpayee's fragility; to the loyalists it was a manifestation of his innate decency and greatness.

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COMPLEMENTARY AND CONFLICTING APPROACH Strategist with a sharp, analytical mind, he is clear about objectives and drives a hard bargain. TEMPERAMENT Emotional and shy, blends clarity with bluntness. Under strain, retreats into a shell. Has strong likes. ORIENTATION Cerebral and swayed by ideas. Thinks in English and is media savvy. Can attract talent, inspire loyalty and build a team. LEADERSHIP STYLE Impatient of fools but treats party as a joint family. Leads from the front and loves parliamentary battles. Inspired by Sardar Patel. IDEOLOGY Classic right-winger with a preference for a strong state, free market and modernity. Proud to be RSS. PURSUITS Frugal lifestyle with a fondness for chocolate. Voracious film buff and fascinated by gizmos. Wife calls the shots at home. APPROACH Driven by instincts, sees politics as the art of the possible. Accommodating, he dislikes confrontation. TEMPERAMENT Emotional and taciturn, uses sarcasm and ambivalence to effect. Under strain, given to petulance. Too sensitive to personal attacks. Has fanatical dislikes. ORIENTATION Moved by poetry. Thinks in Hindi and is out of sorts with the new media. A loner, he mesmerises crowds. More a charismatic icon than captain. LEADERSHIP STYLE Very democratic in Cabinet. A good listener and natural consensus builder with great parliamentary skills. Cast in a Nehruvian mould. IDEOLOGY In the social democratic mould. A convert to liberalisation, believes in a strong state. Corporate loyalty to RSS. PURSUITS A devoted family man given to good food, especially Chinese. Writes poetry, loves mountains and overseas travel.

Second, it was an expression of the entire NDS's confidence in the coalition dharma of Advani. To those reliving images of a man polarising the country atop a motorised rath, Advani was an ugly Hindu fanatic. To those who had worked with him in the Cabinet, he was the blunt consensus-seeker, a courteous man in search of a decisive common ground. Advani claims he hasn't changed. That may well be true. What has changed is politics. The priorities of 1990 haven't withstood the rigours of time.

Consequently, Advani's elevation won't result in the NDS becoming a casualty of a hardline, isolationist BJP. It is likely to see the alliance becoming active as a political entity to take on the Congress challenge. The Hindutva impulses of the BJP will be subsumed within the common NDS platform of anti-terrorism and nationalist flag-waving. Despite playing the Hindu card in Gujarat-under the cover of Gujarati pride-the BJP isn't abandoning the NDS for the 2004 election. During his Ahmedabad visit last week, Advani took care to echo some of Vajpayee's concerns while simultaneously endorsing Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Indeed, one of Advani's priorities will be to tell the RSS where to get off, something he can do more skilfully than Vajpayee.

In whatever direction politics moves, the effects of June 29 have been immediate. The Cabinet Secretariat may still be delving into the archives to unearth the Jawaharlal Nehru-Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel division of labour, but an unstated work-sharing arrangement appears to have already evolved.

Never entirely comfortable with the turbulence of conflict and the nitty-gritty of politicking, Vajpayee seems to have entrusted day-to-day political management to Advani. The first indication of this was the generational shift effected by new BJP President M. Venkaiah Naidu in the top echelons of the party. On four different occasions last week, Advani sat with Naidu, sometimes alone, sometimes in the company of RSS pointsman Madan Das Devi, to work out the details of the rejuvenation. If the reorganisation was only partially radical, it was Advani's moderation that was at work.

OLD AND THE NEW: The youthful face of the BJP personified by Jaitley (second from left) and Naidu (right) is now more visible

Advani had handled the party in the past as well, but since 1998, his interventions were always tinged with a degree of tentativeness-as if unsure how much of his extra-curricular work would be appreciated at Race Course Road. Part of the problem stemmed from his less-than-cordial relations with Vajpayee's Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra. As these strains passed into folklore and the air fouled, no one was entirely sure whether the positions attributed to the PMO had the blessings of Vajpayee or were sniper attacks by those sheltering behind the prime minister's name. Many of the blunders of Yashwant Sinha's Budget 2002 stemmed from the absence of any political filters to pmo wisdom. Advani will now be a natural second line of defence against what is passed off in Vajpayee's name, particularly inexplicable transfers and postings.

The tensions between the PMO and the ministry concerned were most evident in the handling of Kashmir. Although the Department of Kashmir Affairs was vested in the home minister, it was a special cell in the PMO under Special Adviser A.S. Dulat that undertook independent initiatives. This was a plain power game and resulted in the Kashmir policy becoming somewhat incoherent. With Advani's elevation, a semblance of order may be restored with the Multi-Agency Intelligence Centre headed by Intelligence Bureau Special Director Ajit Doval playing a key role in the run-up to the state election. Doval reports to the Home Ministry and enjoys Advani's trust.

ALTERED EQUATIONS: Mishra may find his powers limited in the new order

Indeed, the coming months may witness Advani's growing involvement in national security and foreign policy issues. Some of this had already begun after September 11 and the face-off with Pakistan-Advani's trip to the US last January was an important milestone-but will now become more pronounced. "Advani won't have to wait for President Bush to accidentally drop in to converse with him. He can now seek one-to-one meetings with heads of state," says a Foreign Ministry official. There are suggestions that Advani may even undertake crucial foreign trips if Vajpayee is unable to travel.

The facile view is that Advani's new role in policy and politics will result in an alternative power centre that will, in time, overwhelm Vajpayee. As theories go, this is delicious stuff. But it ignores the fact that after Advani's redesignation, the NDS Government is actually looking much stronger and more effective. The venerable Vajpayee is doing what he is best at-being the voice of reassurance. And Advani is doing what he excels in-managing politics. There is an important power shift but it won't inevitably trigger a conflict. Not unless a sense of profound insecurity propels either player into committing harakiri.

-with Shishir Gupta