Paswan is used to large majorities. He has won two parliamentary elections at margins of 510,000 (1989) and 429,000 (1977) and this time wants it to go beyond 600,000, the record breaking victory margin set up by former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao.

The former railway minister's confidence stems from the fact that this time his party, the Janata Dal (U), is in the National Democratic Alliance led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which theoretically makes it possible for him to get votes from those subscribing to the Hindu nationalist ideology.

While BJP is traditionally backed by the higher castes, Paswan himself has the backing of Dalits and some other lower castes in Hajipur, one among the "reserved" constituencies where only Dalit candidates cancontest. The support of at least part of the intermediate Kurmi caste could also go to him as the Samata Party, which joined up with Paswan's Janata Dal to form the JD(U), draws its supports mainly from this caste. His backers say that the huge support that Laloo Prasad Yadav, the leader of Bihar's ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), had among the Muslims and his own Yadav caste is waning.

A milkman in Hajipur, Suresh Yadav, told IANS that Paswan at least had done something for the constituency unlike RJD which had just been dividing people along caste lines. Chinto Singh, a local businessman, claimed even though they had no love for Paswan, the people of Hajipur would vote for him because they wanted Atal Behari Vajpayee to become prime minister again.

In spite of the Paswan bravado there is little reason to believe that the Muslims and the Yadavs will ditch the RJD and its candidate Ramai Rai. The Muslims and the Yadavs alone form 33 per cent of the electorate and their backing, along with votes from thetraditional Congress vote bank, should see Rai through, his supporters feel.

There is another factor that could help Rai--the presence in the fray of Ram Sunder Das of the Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya). Das, a former chief minister and socialist leader, finished second to Paswan in the last elections as RJD candidate and is now poised to wean away a substantial segment of Dalit votes, his supporters say.

Many local people who talked to IANS said Paswan had antagonised the upper castes by not doing anything significant for them. They got further infuriated when a local supporter of Paswan tried to force all bus owners to send vehicles when the leader was going in a cavalcade to file his nomination papers.

But CK Singh, a bus owner in Hajipur, said Laloo Yadav's upper caste bashing is still fresh in their minds as otherwise they would have voted for his party or for Sunder Das.

With such political undercurrents coming into play, Paswan might not keep harping on record margins for long.

IndiaAbroad News Service