To give an analogy, Hindutva was a marginalized ideology in 1980. So when Jana Sangh relaunched themselves as the BJP, Vajpayee declared that Gandhian socialism would be their foundational ideology. In the founding convention, Advani declared that the party was committed to JP's https://twitter.com/AsimAli6/status/1291571591512494080

Total revolution. Vajpayee also laid claim to JP's legacy in his speech and didn't mention SP Mukherjee and DD Upadhyay in his speech, the tallest Hindu nationalist leaders.

The rationale was simple. The BJP must align itself with the national mainstream, which was Gandhi & JP,

and not the hard Hindutva of SP Mukherjee. That was the way to grow. Among the five tenets it committed itself to, one was secularism.

Yet, four years later it was reduced to just 4 seats. Perhaps then the BJP realised that in losing its ideological distinctiveness in the

pursuit of an ephemeral mainstream, it was losing its appeal. Then it decided to aggressively shape the national mainstream, when Advani took the reigns of the party and launched it in it's hard Hindutva course with the Ram Janambhoomi movement. The BJP grew dramatically.

The point is that national mainstream/public opinion etc are shifting categories. Parties are meant to lead and stake out their own political turf in order to grow.

If the Congress adopts soft Hindutva now, it wont succeed like BJPs Gandhian socialism didn't succeed because

the Congress would lose its ideological distinctiveness.

The public can make out your inauthenticity & can separate principled/ committed stands from opportunism/pragmatism. If the INC now says that they (& not the RSS) deserve credit for the Mandir, the people would only laugh.