As the world's largest democracy readies to vote for the third time in as many years, there is no clear winner in sight.
But Indians are not too concerned. Neither economic nor foreign policy is likely to change substantially if Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is replaced by its main challenger, the Congress Party led by Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of slain former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Whoever gets most seats in the 545-member House of the People in the September-October election, a soft-spoken Sikh economist is projected as the next Congress prime minister. As finance minister under Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, Dr Manmohan Singh began to dismantle India's state controls and encourage free market operations. The BJP, which had long championed private enterprise, accused Singh of stealing its idea and, in a populist twist, declared that domestic capital would be given preference.
Foreign investment, Vajpayee famously declared, was for computer chips, not potato chips.
No incoming government would think of flouting this economic agenda, the BJP's tough stance towards Pakistan, or its posturing as an independent nuclear deterrent. The hodgepodge of smaller parties the winner will have to rely on will defuse any radicalism. What concerns Indians is not who wins but whether, after a succession of shaky minority governments, the winner will get enough seats to ensure stability and reform.
With inflation at its lowest in 20 years, most opinion polls give the BJP a clear lead. Vajpayee's handling of the armed crisis in Kashmir reinforced his prestige. Even American President Bill Clinton, who had been cool towards India ever since the nuclear tests of May 1998, praised India's handling of the affair.
A survey by Outlook magazine in August predicted that the BJP and its allies would win up to 329 seats, the BJP alone increasing its strength from 182 to 216. In contrast, Congress representation was predicted to fall from 141 to 122. Gandhi responded by retreating from her go-it-alone stand and dangled a power-sharing arrangement before a clutch of small anti-BJP parties. Predicted Congress support shot up to 172 seats while the BJP's dwindled to between 165 and 170.
Gandhi's supporters are already hailing the prospect of the return to power of India's oldest political organization which has ruled the country for 44 of its 52 years of independence.
But the change of tack re-opened controversy over her involvement in the election. Gandhi accepts the majority sentiment against a European at the top but people are now demanding to know why she waited 15 years after marrying Rajiv in 1968 to acquire Indian citizenship. Some suspect her of retaining her Italian passport when she became an Indian national in 1983. `Once an Italian, always an Italian,' crows anti-Congress lawyer Pran Nath Lekhi.
Even Singh, the only prominent politician not touched by political scandal, may be a mixed blessing. India needs his realism but he is better known in high-powered international circles than in India's villages. Meanwhile, Gandhi's coalition offer may bring small parties to her rescue but is seen by some as admission that she has given up hope of an outright majority.
Vajpayee has not. Riding high on his diplomatic and military triumph, he is promising land to the tiller, jobs under a reconstruction scheme, an ombudsman, female reservation in parliament, special privileges to certain influential communities, and to carve up big states into smaller units.
RSS