FOLLOWING the announcement this week of general election dates in April and May, India's political manoeuvring is likely to be stepped up a gear.
Some 590 million voters will elect 552 members to the Lok Sabha (lower house) in four phases because of special security needs. Voting takes place on April 27th, May 2nd, 7th and 21st.
Vying for power will be the Congress-I party of the Prime Minister, Mr Narasimha Rao, which now holds 232 seats, and the Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with 114 seats.
Also contesting will be the centrist Janata Dal (59 seats) and the Left Front comprising two communist parties with 49 seats between them.
Corruption will be the main issue but rising prices, the criminalisation of politics, India's weak and ill defined defence policy and government inefficiency will also feature prominently on the election trail.
A cross section of MPs admitted that voter apathy and anger will make alliances crucial, as no single party will be able to win a majority of 287 seats.
But even before parties hit the campaign trail, a majority are in disarray following the 650 million rupee (£12 million) corruption scandal involving senior politicians. Since last November, 24 politicians, including seven federal ministers in Mr Rao's government, several former ministers and MPs have been charged with accepting bribes from a New Delhi business family to win lucrative government contracts.
Mr Lal Krishna Advani, the BJP leader, has been charged with accepting money from dubious sources, and has resigned from parliament, saying he will not fight the elections till he is exonerated.
However, all parties accuse Mr Rao of engineering the corruption scandal through the Central Bureau of Investigation, which he controls. By smearing senior party colleagues and the opposition with the same "corrupt" brush, Mr Rao is hoping to demolish corruption as an effective electoral weapon. According to Congress MPs, Mr Rao was telling the electorate that all politicians are the same when naked in the sauna.
