Meanwhile

Similarly, all leaders have scrupulously steered clear of former Prime Minsiter Chandra Shekhar8217;s pocket-burrough of Ballia. In fact, in 1996, the BJP did him the service of not fielding a candidate against him. This time, the Samajwadi Party has respectfully bowed out.

Now that Vajpayee has crossed the Rubicon in Bellary, the Congress is doing a rethink on whether or not Sonia should address a rally in Lucknow. The old-fashioned feel that Sonia should keep up the convention. Others disagree. The compromise could be a rally by Priyanka. All8217;s fairin love and elections, right?

Right choice?

The tit-for-tat politics is taking its toll, however. Ever since the BJP sprung Sushma Swaraj on Sonia Gandhi in Bellary, the Congress has been going bananas trying to find a candidate to give Vajpayee a black eye in Lucknow. It speaks volumes of Vajpayee8217;s stature that so far the party has not been able to come up a name that can send the kind of ripples through BJP circles that Sushma8217;s did in the Congress.

All kinds of proposals have done the rounds 8211; Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat, his wife Niloufer, Narain Dutt Tiwari, Karan Singh and Sunil Dutt. The latest suggestion is to try and persuade the Samajwadi Party and the BSP to sponsor a joint candidate with the Congress. Given the bad blood between the three, the idea is obviously a non-starter. It just shows the extent of the party8217;s desperation to even the Bellary score.

As the search continues, there is one name that refuses to go away 8211; Priyanka8217;s. It8217;s at the top of every UP Congress leader8217;s list andall kinds of statistics about the 5-lakh strong minority vote and the 2-lakh strong Dalit vote are being thrown at Sonia to persuade her to allow her daughter to enter the electoral fray.

Till date, Sonia has refused to bite. But Congressmen have not given up hope. Certainly, they8217;re keeping the mystery going, if only to let the BJP stew for a while.

Grounded press

Election money seems to be really short this time. And journalists invited to accompany leaders on their campaign trail are bearing the brunt. They have many a tale to tell about penny-pinching by political parties. Like the group which was to go with Sonia Gandhi to Aurangabad. Bleary-eyed hacks who landed up at the airport at the crack of dawn were told that the helicopter hired to fly them to the venue of her meeting could only accommodate three. They had to pull straws to choose the lucky three.

The ones who were taken to Bellary for the first round of Sonia8217;s campaign had to skip the rally at which Priyanka spoke because therewas no helicopter to take them there. They ended up missing the story of the day. And on their way back, they found the party had forgotten to make arrangements for them to get out of Bellary. Take a taxi to Hyderabad, they were told. The seven-hour back-breaking journey would have meant no story at all for the next morning8217;s papers.

Forget about filing

Not that journalists doing the rounds with the BJP have fared any better. The group which flew with Vajpayee to Jodhpur were horrified to find that they were packed seven to a cab on the long, dusty drive from the airport to the meeting site. When they reached Bikaner from Jodhpur, they found that the BJP had booked them into a hotel without fax facilities. They spent the better part of the evening hunting for a place from which to file their stories.

But the cruellest cut was the return journey. They had been booked to travel on the slow train to Delhi, a metre-gauge railway line. It8217;s a far cry from the 1996 and 1998 elections when the leadersand the accompanying press team travelled in style.

Flower crunch

The lack of money is showing in the campaign as well. Jagmohan, the BJP8217;s nominee for the New Delhi seat, has been recycling his garlands. On his round of the Yamuna Pushta jhuggis last week, the same eight garlands were used again and again by the residents. And the garlands were being handed out by a little boy accompanying the former Minister. Now, was this some stringent budgeting or desperate self-publicity?