As we enter the last stretch, there is even more confusion. The nervousness in the Congress camp is reflected by the rather ungainly sacking of the head of its media cell, Veerappa Moily. (I am not discounting the civil war among the party spokespersons for remaining on the media panel, which allows them to appear on TV channels. Everyone wants a piece of the action!) Mr Moily is usually a safe pair of hands but after Rahul Gandhi’s extraordinary press conference, the Congress does not wish to annoy existing or potential allies.
If you go by the buzz, Nitish Kumar is on the verge of switching sides if the NDA cannot make it. Whether this actually happens, we will wait and see but Nitish’s own enigmatic pronouncements and off-the-record briefings by his senior aides suggest that he could be "persuaded" by the UPA.
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Where does that leave Lalu? Not with too many options. If there are two leaders whose body language is consistently negative, it is the SP and RJD chiefs. The latter, especially, was the media’s darling. In election 2009 Mr Prasad has emerged as the "angry young man" of Bihar. Ram Vilas Paswan can easily switch sides without any loss to his fiefdom, but Lalu can’t switch. Any move towards the NDA will mean political suicide for him. So, he is stuck in the UPA – but not if Mr Nitish is there too.
Mr Moily’s crime, if I can call it that, is that he upset both Lalu and Nitish on the same day. Not a very sensible thing to do in view of the fact that his party is courting the chief minister of Bihar.
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I detect some buoyancy in the steps of BJP leaders and a concurrent uncertainty in the Congress camp. Why? All the pundits and bookies still maintain that Sonia’s party has its nose in front. So the nervousness must be based on some new internal assessment!
On the 13th of May, when we will get the result of the first exit polls, we may have some inkling of kaun banega pradhan mantri.
Tailpiece: Warning: All exit polls were wrong in 2004!
