The Sangh Parivar has, after much deliberation and due diligence, reached the conclusion that even though it had agreed to Mr. Lal Krishna Advani as the BJP's prime ministerial candidate in the next general elections, it cannot allow him to be the party's mascot nor the man who will lay down the BJP policies in the run-up to the polls. Why does the Parivar engage in this play on the words? It cannot straightaway disown Mr. Advani. It has, therefore, allowed him, in an unusual move as a face-saving device, to hit the road and go on one more Yatra to try and engage in an image makeover on the issue of rising prices and high levels of inflation, but signifying almost nothing. At the same time, the BJP itself has ordered, under commands from the Parivar, that the hardliner, Mr. Murli Manohar Joshi, will draft the party's manifesto for the elections.

While this is intended as a snub for Mr. Advani so as to bring one of his detractors in the party back in the front line, but it is also clear that the BJP manifestoes are usually just tall talk with hardly any value, perhaps not even the paper it is written on. But the real snub lies in the fact that at the Bangaluru National Executive of the BJP, it was decided to project Mr. Narendra Modi as the party's mascot and the party's "mass leader", quitely pushing him to the forefront and preparing him for the top slot if by chance the BJP emerges as the largest single party in the elections, though the Parivar has given up hopes on that count.

It is in this light that Mr. Advani's crocodile tears and statements that he misses the guidance of Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee. It is true that more than 30 years Mr. Advani acknowledged Mr. Vajpayee as his mentor and guru, but once he became Home Minister, his ambitions became uncontrolled and he tried more than once to topple Mr. Vajpayee as Prime Minister and replace him: only the RSS and the Sangh Parivar were unable to crown him as king or be king makers as the groundswell of support for Mr. Vajpayee in the BJP and NDA was enormous and could not be frittered away.

Its assessment appears to be that the BJP may just cross the 100 seats point in the Lok Sabha, or 125 at best. Its projections appear to be the same for the Congress. In the Sangh Parivar's perceptions, the two major national parties, which lead the United Progressive Alliance and the National Democratic Alliance, do not appear to be heading for a clear lead in the hustings. Nor do they give the Left Front or the moribund Third Front or even Ms. Mayawati much of a chance in the elections and staying around 50 or fewer seats, with regional parties being able to do something for themselves, but at the end of the day, it might be a badly hung Parliament, with no clear winners in sight.

The Sangh Parivar is not impressed by the BJP demand for the resignation of Mr. Shivraj Patil, the Union Home Minister, for his alleged failure to fight terrorism and is fully aware of the greater failure of Mr. Advani as Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, to be able to curb terrorism. The criticism of the Congress on this count could well be a futile exercise, which could focus on the BJP's own failures when it was in power for six years from 1998 to 2004.

At the same time, Ms. Mayawati has hit back at both the Left Front and the moribund and at this point of time imaginary Third Front by announcing that she will go it alone in the elections all over India and will have no seat sharing or adjustments with any party as she still dreams of becoming the Prime Minister of India one day, if not in the near future. She does not wish to share her Dalit vote bank, to which she has tried to add some upper castes like the Brahmins and Thakurs, leave alone Yadavs, Banias and what have you. She is an angry woman and would like to brook no interference in her ambitions as she rules the most populous State of India with 150 million or more people residing within its boundaries. She is as irrepressible as Ms. Mamta Bannerjee, but the two women leaders have as yet no common meeting ground as both are preoccupied with their passions and thinking as the genuine representatives of the downtrodden, be they farmers or those on the fringes of society, but sizable in numbers.

There is no doubt that the two women leaders are a thorn in the flesh of mainstream political parties, especially the arrogant leftists, who have and still claim to be the solitary spokesmen of the proletariat and try to call the shots in their name. They are now facing strong competition all over the country and appear to be lying low at this point of time as there are no takers for their theory and tall talk. Down South, one more woman leader is waiting in the wings and hoping to return to the power games. She is Ms. Jayalalitha, who is certain that the incumbency factor will cost the DMK and its leader, Mr. Karunanidhi. She is taking no interest at this time in the developments in Andhra, where one more film star, Chiranjeevi, has thrown his hat in the ring by launching a party of his own.

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