In 1996, the BJP (won) 52 seats. Obviously, if the BJP hopes to achieve a near-200 seat target, it will have to retain its present strength from Uttar Pradesh. Not an easy task.

By the same reckoning (if) the anti-BJP forces want to stop Vajpayee's presumably unstoppable anointment in New Delhi, then it becomes incumbent on them to devise strategies, eschew egos and to forget the past and recent animosities to get down to the business of denying Uttar Pradesh to the BJP. Nobody seems to understand this better than the Congress president Sitaram Kesri ... An alliance between the social forces represented by the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party can constitute a formidable combine; if to ..this is added the "traditional goodwill" of the Congress, the front could become almost unbeatable.

... It cannot be presumed that they would go about the job systematically. To begin with, a section within the United Front can be expected to work on the egos and sense of self-importance of a number of leaders in the Samajwadi Party; the U.F. crowd has not had much success in making Mulayam Singh Yadav revise his views about the irrelevance of the knee-jerk anti-Congressism. Therefore, the UF prima donnas are working on those around Yadav to keep alive the anti- Congress flames.

The task of the anti-Congress elements in the UF becomes easier because of the cultivated animosity between the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. For now, both Mayawati and Yadav have avowed, predictably enough, to carry on their animosity to its bitter end, even if it means the BJP walking away with the lion's share of seats from Uttar Pradesh. Even within the Congress, a section of the UP-based leaders may not be thrilled at the prospect of playing second fiddle to Yadav or Mayawati.

The UP Congressmen ... can be relied upon to botch up the task of arriving at any reasonable and honourable understanding with the BSP and/or the SP. For now, the BJP has the upper edge because of the total supremacy Kalyan Singh has chalked out for himself in the affairs of Uttar Pradesh; his rough and pragmatic approach to matters political should provide the cutting edge to the BJP's electoral prospects.