The coalition wheels have been falling off the BJP, whose 81-year-old leader, Lal Krishna Advani, is making a desperate, probably last strike at the prime ministership. This week, its powerful ally in Orissa state peeled off. Congress did unexpectedly well in recent state elections.
But both may have to give way to a “third force” of parties based on Hindu lower castes in northern India and large linguistic regions in India’s south. The present Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati, who leads a party based on Dalits (as the former Untouchables call themselves), could be the prime minister.
Another contestant is the muscle-bound film star Sanjay Dutt, a product of Bollywood’s most famous marriage of Hindu and Muslim stars, who is projecting his most popular screen character, Munnabhai, a gangster who tries “Gandhigiri” (Gandhian non-violence).
He is standing in Lucknow for the Samajwadi Party, after winning release on bail pending a Supreme Court appeal against his conviction for arming himself with AK-47s during the 1993 Mumbai anti-Muslim riots.
The ironies that are contemporary India.
Thanks: Sydney Morning Herald
