The reason is not far to seek. Sharma faces a formidable opponent in Sahib Singh Verma, the former chief minister of Delhi and the BJP candidate. To add to his troubles, Sharma also has an in-house competitor, Sajjan Kumar, who was denied ticket from Outer Delhi.

No matter where Sharma goes campaigning in his constituency, one is bound to see resentment among people who compare him with Kumar and are disappointed. At places where fondness for Kumar is more prominent and Sharma is more of a stranger, unhappy whispers take the form of disapproving jibes and party workers have to hush things up before the situation takes an ugly turn.

Sharma, too is partly responsible for this. With only two days of campaigning left, he has not yet covered the whole constituency even once.A Congress supporter in Tigri JJ Colony said, "Had Kumar contestedfrom the region, we would have been able to garner more local support as he is young and is much more active than Sharma."

Sharma's advanced age is one card which Sahib Singh Verma has been playing continuously since the beginning of his campaign. To Sharma's angry retort that he was healthy enough and a politician need not be a muscleman to be in Parliament, Verma replied that some amount of strength is certainly required to address the problems of over 32 lakh people living in the unwieldy Outer Delhi constituency.

Verma claims that he is on the second round of campaigning and will also take a third round of some places, especially resettlement colonies. However, his whirlwind tour of most of the assembly constituencies lasting not more than 10 minutes has left many unsatisfied. Dissatisfied comments like, "Arre, Sabha itani jaldi khatam bhee ho gayi," (What, the meeting is over so soon!) are not unusual after Singh's fleeting speeches.

The issues on which both the candidates are seeking votesare basically the general points on which the parties have been running their poll campaign nationally.

For Verma, the issues are his familiarity with the regions and the people in the constituency, promise of a corruption-free government, the national duty of keeping a foreign citizen from taking high posts and Congress's lackluster performance at the state level.

Sharma, on the other hand, is talking about his long-standing commitment to the people in the region, his party's ability to provide a single-party secular government, the onion, potato and numerous other scams which BJP has done in the state, and the smooth performance of the state government under the leadership of Shiela Dikshit.

The two candidates cannot afford to ignore the Bahujan Samaj Party candidate Brahm Singh Bidhuri. Bidhuri, a Gujjar, is not to be taken lightly, especially by the Congress. Apart from the Gujjar community's, he has the backing of a large section of SC/ST groups and OBCs. These communities together account foraround eight lakh vote. Bidhuri has reportedly completed more than three rounds of the constituency.

And then there is Nationalist Congress Party candidate Sukhveer Sharma who is vying for the votes of the six lakh-strong Brahmin community in the region.

This is bad news for Verma and Sharma, as both are claiming to have the support of the Brahmins.

With the electronic voting system well in place, one has to wait for only a few more days to find out the results. After all, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.