26% of India decides today

S M Krishna and Chandrababu Naidu are both mascots of the IT-backed new economy that has transformed Bangalore and Hyderabad, and yet both face rural discontent epitomised most graphically by the spate of farmers’ suicides in the two states.

In Karnataka, the Congress faces a two-pronged attack from a resurgent BJP in the north and from the Deve Gowda-led Janata Dal (S) in the south. In AP, the Telugu Desam faces the combined might of the Congress-Telengana Rashtra Samiti-Left alliance, and the big imponderable is whether the fledgling TRS will make enough of a dent in Telengana to deny Naidu a third term.

The third important state in this round is Maharashtra (24 of 48 seats tomorrow) where the NCP-Congress combine is hoping to ride the anti-incumbency factor and deny the BJP-Shiv Sena crucial seats in the 14th Lok Sabha.

The two states where all seats will go to the polls tomorrow are Gujarat (26) and Chhattisgarh (11). The BJP, riding high on its assembly election victories in both states, is talking of a ‘‘clean sweep’’ in both states.

In Orissa—where Assembly and Parliament polls are being held together—11 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats will face polls tomorrow. It is another state where the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD-BJP combine hopes to repeat its handsome 1999 result when it won 19 of the 21 seats.

Here too, as in much of the country, the initial “feel good” wave has been somewhat checked by rural discontent but whether this translates for more seats to the Congress remains uncertain.

Besides Gujarat, the BJP is going it alone in Jharkhand and Assam (6 of 14 seats in the first phase in both states). In Jharkhand, facing its first polls since it was carved out of Bihar, the BJP is the strong force but may lose a few seats to the Congress-JMM-CPI combine, particularly since the JD(U) is also in the fray as are a few BJP rebels. The situation is the reverse in Assam where the incumbent Congress regime faces a pincer attack from the BJP and AGP who are fighting separately this time.

And then, of course, there is the most politically colourful state of Bihar (11 out of 40) where Laloo Prasad Yadav has managed to cobble together a formidable RJD-Lok Janashakti Party-Congress-CPI(M) alliance that is giving the BJP-JD(U) combine (which won the majority of LS seats in 1999) sleepless nights.

Tomorrow’s ballot assumes even greater significance in light of opinion polls indicating that the BJP-led NDA’s popularity has declined somewhat since elections were first announced. The BJP’s campaign, too, has shifted gears and is now focussing less on ‘‘India Shining’’ than on Atal Behari Vajpayee’s leadership.

But Vajpayee’s enigmatic comment that he was tired of leading a 22-party coalition (at a time when his USP was the ability to lead a coalition) and that his ‘‘successor’’ was in place has added a new dimension to the poll campaign.

The results of tomorrow’s voting will be known only on May 13 but if exit polls are accurate, they could given a hint which way the wind will blow in the next three phases of polling beginning April 26.