Poll Pot

Her anger apparently has nothing to do with the fact that she was denied a Lok Sabha ticket by the Congress but that the party has shown no 8220;maturity8221; on Kargil, making her feel 8220;thoroughly8221; bad. 8220;In this hour of national honour, they are having only petty political ends in their view her words,8221; she said. 8220;Sonia Gandhi could not digest the Kargil victory.8221; Bali now finds that Sonia has not contributed anything towards the development of the country and the Congress either. In fact, it has dawned on her, Sharad Pawar and P.A. Sangmahad been right all along in objecting to people of foreign origin holding high office. Her resignation letter says she has been observing the Congress drifting from its avowed principles and 8220;one can see day in and day out that sincere party workers are being steadily ignored8221;.

And when such 8220;sincere8221; workers are ignored, they find solace in other party8217;s arms. As Bali has done. 8220;Looked at from any angle,8221; she says, 8220;it is the BJP alone that can save the country today and that too under the brilliant leadership of Vajpayeeji.8221; Besides, saving her career too, perhaps.

MUMBAI: From dot to dot com, parties are using everything to hit it off with the apathetic electorate in Maharashtra. The Congress has rushed in crimson red bindis with a miniature print of 8220;hand8221; and tri-coloured fans; the BJP has key chains bearing 8220;Atalji8217;s8221; mug. Just in case the voters miss the gigantic cutouts and flags all over the place, the audio-cassettes blaring out messages set to popular film songs, and the Web wars.Here8217;s the party-wise picture:

The Congress: 11,000 flags to each Lok Sabha candidate and 5,000 flags to every Vidhan Sabha nominee. Each candidate gets 2,200 posters, 20 cassettes carrying popular jingles and two cut-outs of Sonia Gandhi.

The Shiv Sena: Systematic distribution of publicity material through six main centres 8212; Nagpur, Amravati, Sambhaji Nagar, Nasik, Thane and Konkan, including more than 5,000 booklets on achi-evements of 8220;Shivshahi8221;.

The BJP: Nearly 1,000 cutouts of Vajpayee stocked in Mumbai office for further allocation. The Nationalist Congress Party: 100 copies of party manifesto, three sets of audio- and video-cassettes, pamphlets and one lakh badges distributed to each candidate.