The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has .. announced that during the Kumbh Mela at Prayag in Jan uary it will publicly declare the date for the start of cons'truction of the Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayoalhya.

T'he dates are likely to be around the end of next year, anytime between October and December.

As always, the VHP plans in Ayodhya have coincided with Assembly elections. Whether the temple is built or not, clearly the VHP plans to test the waters ...

... Although for some time now it has tried to keep off the Ayodhya issue, every now and then its leaders in Uttar Pradesh have kept the issue alive by making statements about the BJP's commitment on this.

And its coalition partners at the Centre are too busy enjoying the fruits of power to worry too much about the BJP's Hindutva platform.

... If the VHP is even half way successful in whipping up a frenzy over the Ram temple issue, the BJP too will jump in to make full political use of it in the Assembly elections ...

Senior leaders ... do not admit that the party has now given negative signals to the Backwards and the Scheduled Castes in Uttar Pradesh ..

Experience has shown that in State politics it is the caste of the leader at the State level which matters and which can pull members of that caste towards the party Laxman ... in Delhi will hardly be able to counter the effect of Bhan having been given the sack in Lucknow ...

With no senior Backward or Dalit leader in the party from Uttar Pradesh, the lower castes are feeling orphaned This may also explain why Vajpayee gave in to the blackmail tactics of Uma Bharati and accommodated her in the Union Cabinet.

For, the party could not afford to be seen to be sidelining another Backward leader ...

This upper caste-lower caste tension in the party ...together with the tension between the party's Hindutva ideological base and its newer secular pretensions could become a powerful factor in determining the BJP's electoral fortunes.

Uttar Pradesh ... will become the focal point of the  party's struggle to retain its supremacy in the Hindi heartland. After all, in the rest of India, the East, the South and Maharashtra in the West, the BJP is simply riding piggy-back on other political forces, and it is acutely aware of this. It cannot afford to lose its base in Uttar Pradesh. (Source: The Hindu, 12 November, 2000)