The Congress appears to have decided to make a distinction between the Prime Minister and the BJP and bail ont Atal Behari Vajpayee who is under fire from the RSS and a section of his party ...

The Congress has realised that by rescuing Vajpayee, it will help deepen the dissensions within the BJP and between the saffron party and the RSS. Widening the chasm between Vajpayee and the RSS weakens both in the long run. The BJP's poll machinery will suffer a setback without RSS cadres to campaign for it, and the RSS will be reduced to a cultural organisation without he benefit of a party.

Such a strategy also given the Congress greater manouevrability to determine a time table for a mid-term poll ... Many in the party feel the country's mood at the moment is against "khichdi" government and for one party rule, This could dissipate 6 months later.

In the BJP too there is a view that it may be better for the party to cut its losses and go for early polls, which may enable it to retain some of its base. "If things go on as they are, it may be a repeat of 1984 - from 84 MPs down to 2,' said a party MP ... (Source: The Indian Express, 19 December, 1998)

Rajasthan: Assembly Elections, 1998

Laloo's Religiousity in Prison

During his previous imprisonment ... Laloo's favourite pastime was to cook non-vegetarian food, which he was fond of, for himself ... he had now turned vegetarian ... and left ... cooking ... to jail staff ...

Laloo Prasad Yadav has not only turned vegetarian but resorts to every religious ritual to propitiate the gods. It is learnt that the cot he used to sleep on at the outhouse of the chief minister's residence has been transported to the camp jail.

Besides, he has started believing in charms and spells and wears them probably to drive away the evil spirits which, of late, he believes have been haunting him ... (Source: The Hindustan Times, 22 November, 1998)

Left: Fresh Look at the Congress

Annoyed by the Congress (I)'s cold response to their offer of support to dislodge the Vajpayee Government, the Left parties have mounted a sharp attack on that party accusing it of political arrogance following its electoral victories in Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

(They think that) the Congress (I) was reading to much into the election results which, according to them, were indicative more of an anti-BJP sentiment than a pro-Congress (I) shift in the national mood. They pointed out that the Congress (I) was "deluding" itself if it thought it was on a comeback trail.

The Left's assessment is that with UP and Bihar continuing to be a "no-flying zone" for the Congress (I), the party has little chance of bouncing back; and the story in the South also is not particularly rosy for the party as regional parties remain dominant in most places. . The Congress (I), according to CPM is "dreaming" if it thinks that on the strength of its victories in Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh it can come back to power at the Centre on its own.

The CPI ... said that it was "misinterpreting" the Assembly election results ... The Congress (I) did well in three States where the Left and other "third front" constituents had been "traditionally" weak. Therefore, you can't extent the logic of these three States to UP, Bihar, the southern States and the North-East. The Left's disenchantment with the Congress (I) after a brief but hectic "courtship" has revived the talk about the need for a "third front" comprising non-Congress (I) secular and democratic parties. Left parties have come out strongly against "bi-polar" politics, polarised between the Congress (I) and its allies on the one and the BJP and its allies on the other.

They have characterised the talk of "bi-polar" politics as an attempt by the "bourgeoisie to continue its class rule" ... as New Age puts it. "The perspective of a third alternative has to be looked into from the class angle", it argues.

Yet, neither of the Communist parties has a clear idea of the composition of the proposed "third front", except as a truncated version of the United Front ... is that a "third front" would not come about by "manipulating" anti-Congress (I) and anti-BJP forces, but it would "emerge" from joint struggles on substantive "class and mass issues". (Source: The Hindu, 30 December, 1998)

Shivanath Jha On Mulayam Singh's Dilemma

This is a crucial phase in the career of Mulayam Singh Yadav. The man who once came tantalisingly close to becoming the prime minister of India now sees cracks in the platform that he painfully built. Since the days of the Bharatiya Janata Party's Ram temple movement, Mulayam Singh Yadav has packaged himself as a genuine leader of north India's Muslims. He had credibility, he did what he said and his stand during Advani's rath yatra made the Muslim electorate in India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh follow him in his electoral journeys.

Mulayam's arrogance and political bargaining power came from his ability to win votes in UP and the strength of his vote bank. He already had the Yadav and backward voters, and the gradual shift of the Muslim votes – away from the Congress to the party Mulayam headed, now the Samajwadi Party - made him a national player ...

The SP's rise was parallel to the fall of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh. The party (which had) catapulted leaders from the UP to the top job in the country saw its ranks depleted: it lost the upper castes to the BJP, the backward castes and Muslims to the SP and the dalits to the Bahujan Samaj Party

... The Muslims did not have an alternative in UP. But only by-election seems to have changed things overnight. The party everyone had written off in UP, the Congress, showed it's back in the business of getting votes in the Agra assembly by-election, here it performed well and Mulayam's party badly.

Samajwadi Party bosses told their partymen and press that ... the result did not show any paradigm shift in UP politics.

Mulayam also does not buy the argument that the votes have begun to shift. "When the minorities vote the Congress, they do it under grave compulsion. They voted for the Congress in Rajasthan and Delhi out of fear for the BJP and they voted for the Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha out of love and respect. The basic difference will have to be recognised", adds Mulayam.

Their speeches, however, prove that things are not quite so. Mulayam who has been urging Congress president Sonia Gandhi to take over the leadership of the country, with his party's support, suddenly turned around to say that her party is the enemy number one and not the BJP. That was not a slip, statements of the same tone and message were repeated at regular intervals.

Why is the Samajwadi party suddenly sending out panic signals? Having already burnt bridges with its natural ally, the BSP, the SP will find it tough to reposition itself in UP politics if Muslim votes shift to the Congress en bloc. Though the shift in Muslim votes may not be the end of the story for the SP, it certainly means a scaling down of its political ambitions.

Says Mulayam:" ... We are not using the minorities as a strategy like the Congress. Congress uses the minorities while we are committed to them," says Mulayam.

But the question here is more immediate. How can the SP appear friendly with a party which is poaching its own vote banks in the state that matters most? If Mulayam continues to tell his shaky vote bank that the enemy number one is BJP, they can very well think of voting for a national party which has the potential to defeat the BJP - read the Congress. ...

Mulayam's is a hard choice. His secular rhetoric suffers when he says the BJP is not the prime enemy. His vote bank may suffer when he says the Congress is better than the BJP. So in the run-up to the next election, the Samajwadi Party has to walk the razor's edge ... a tough and dangerous task. (Source: The Indian Express, 4 January, 1999)