But Bakwas merely smiled and said, 'You know, you are not as dumb as you seem'. I wasn't sure if it was a left-handed compliment or his usual condescension. As I said, he can be quite inscrutable. Perhaps he was just mocking me, but before I could decide, he decided to carry on. 'It is called providing for a rainy day,' he said empathically. 'It is clear that the Left has its own agenda and so do all the regional outfits like the SP, BSP, TDP, RJD or, why, even JD (S). See how they have Bengalored (or did he use the new spelling: Bengalurued? I am not sure) the Congress. Congress is more of their competition at the state-level rather than the BJP. Typically, the potential Third Front is all anti-Congress whereas ideologically speaking the BJP and the Congress are closer than either wants to publicly admit or acknowledge. Why, take economic policy, communalism, riots, book-bans or even corruption. So the real threat to the Congress is from the demise of the BJP and hence the desperation to hand it issue after issue, much like Liquid Oxygen, as in that old Ajit joke, only to keep the desperately defunct and deranged party on life support systems somehow, and yet relying on the short attention spans in this age of TV channels induced frenzy.'