kinds, economic recession as a result of the global meltdown, and abject poverty despite a 9 per cent rate of annual growth over nearly five years that is now down to less than 7 per cent.

Acrimony has never been absent from this country's electioneering but never before have rival parties and candidates descended to such low levels as this time around. For the first time the Election Commission was constrained to appeal to all 'recognized political parties' to avoid improper personal attacks, 'hate speeches' that incite religion-based violence and unabashed distribution of cash to voters. Ironically, on the same day a parliamentary candidate in a district of Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) was strung up on a tree, and a Congress legislator was shot dead. Varun Gandhi, a scion of the estranged branch of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty — contesting, like his mother, on behalf of the BJP — was imprisoned for delivering an inflammatory speech under the National Security Act. The Supreme Court has released him for two weeks on parole after he undertook not to deliver such speeches again. Some others have been let off with a warning.

A particularly unfortunate consequence of the prevailing mood has been what the TV channels are gleefully advertising as the 'war of words' between Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and the leader of the Opposition, L. K. Advani, who is also the BJP's prime ministerial candidate. It was Mr. Advani who fired not just the first shot but also a prolonged fusillade. He went on calling the good doctor the 'weakest prime minister' or even nikamma (worthless) prime minister, adding that power was with 'Congress president Sonia Gandhi' and Dr. Singh was a mere 'proxy'. Ultimately, when the prime minister retaliated he did so in kind. Mr. Advani, he said, combined 'strength in speech with weakness in action'. He then drew a withering contrast between what his own government did during the terrorist attack on Bombay and what happened under the government in which Mr. Advani was home minister when an Indian aircraft was hijacked to Kandahar. Advani's cabinet colleague had escorted dreaded terrorists to the Afghan city to exchange them for hostages and negotiated with the Taliban. And so it has gone on.

A far more dangerous facet of the current election scene is virtual breakdown of the system of the two rival alliances such as they have been. Since the Congress refused to go to the polls under the banner of the United Progressive Alliance headed by it, and said it would only have seat-sharing arrangements in each state, the allies still sharing power with it have revolted. In Bihar Laloo Prasad Yadav and Ramvilas Paswan did not concede a single seat to the Congress. In U.P., which sends 80 members to parliament, Mulayam Singh Yadav meted out the same treatment to the senior partner. In Maharashtra, the Maratha strongman, Sharad Pawar, is defying the Congress more subtly.

Pawar is also a contender for the office of prime minister but he is not the only one. The multiplicity of aspirants has led to the joke that there are more wannabe prime ministers today than India has had since independence. A formidable claimant is Mayawati, the Dalit Chief Minister of U.P., who believes that the next parliament would be so hopelessly fragmented that with the 50 seats she expects to win, she would be unstoppable.

Were that all, things might not have been too depressing. What makes them highly pessimistic is a series of clashes between the allies and the Congress. Immediately after the prime minister and the Congress president had condemned the BJP for the 1992 demolition of Babri Masjid, Laloo Yadav thundered that the Congress was as much to blame as the Hindutva party. The late P. V. Narasimha Rao, the then Congress prime minister, had 'colluded' with the BJP. Other allies have joined the chorus.

A bigger blow has befallen the Congress in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. M. Karunanidhi, the state Chief Minister and supreme leader of the Dravida Mennetra Kazhagam, has been a key ally of the Congress just as he was of the BJP in the past. Since the only problem on his and his opponents' minds is the fate of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka, now nearing total defeat, he has rallied to the LTTE's defence. Thirty-one countries have declared it a terrorist organisation. Its supreme leader, Villupillai Prabhakaran, is wanted in India for Rajiv Gandhi's assassination. Yet, for electoral reasons, Karunanidhi lavishly praised Prabhakaran, denied that the LTTE boss was a terrorist and demanded that India must lean on Sri Lanka to order an immediate ceasefire.

Under private pressure from a highly embarrassed Congress, the Tamil Nadu chief minister retracted his statement but only partially. His archrival, Ms. Jayalalithaa, has lost no time to taunt 'Rajiv's widow and Congress president', Sonia Gandhi, for her silence on this crucial subject.

The question, therefore, is that if by some miracle the UPA Phoenix-like rises from its ashes and obtains a small majority, what kind of a government can it provide when every ally will bargain for the highest price? India, as the wide world knows, is in a coalition era but the coalition dharma is just not striking roots.

On the other side of the political divide things are hardly better, which is what gives the legion of regional and caste-based parties hope for the future. The BJP's second most important ally, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik of Orissa, summarily ended his alliance with it after eleven years of political cohabitation. The most important ally of the Hindutva party, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of Bihar, whose stock has gone up because he has provided good governance to the notoriously ill-administered state, is maintaining the alliance 'as of today'. Tomorrow, he adds, is another day. Meanwhile, it is no secret that he is playing footsy with the Congress.

To be sure, the sheer scale of Indian elections is stupendous, staggering and even mind-boggling. This should explain why the elections are being held in five phases that began on April 16 and will end on May 13. Election results will be declared on May 16, thanks to the use of electronic voting machines.
Many feel that this process is too prolonged. But the Election Commission's compulsions became evident on the first day of polling when the naxalites, as the Indian Maoists are called, launched 18 attacks in the areas, largely inhabited by tribal people called adivasis. In all, 28 members of the security forces and election staff were killed, which is more than the number of policemen that were done to death during the horrific Pakistani terrorist attack on Bombay.

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