Is it the Jat community's decision? No, they vehemently disagree. The whole of `Village Delhi' is with Sahib Singh and there are no divisions on the lines of caste, they insist. ``We were all proud of him. Murder and gang wars will not change that. It's the BJP's problem,'' says one of them.

Samata Party nominee Ved Singh's murder has only made the villagers more circumspect. It is being discussed in Outer Delhi's villages in hushed voices. It is being seen as another nail being driven into the BJP coffin. Says an elderly person in Narela, refusing to disclose his name: ``We no longer have to disclose who we will vote for. But the wind is blowing in that no one would give out his name after Ved Singh's murder. ``The news will get to them,'' they say, referring to an unidentified enemy.

Twenty-year-old Dilip resents this ``politics of money and murder'' which the entry of Samata, a BJP ally at the Centre, has ushered in.

``They seem to be fighting their last battle,'' says Jeev Singh, a DTC conductor in Bawana. ``But the Congress is likely to win this round.'' That's the refrain. In Sahib Singh's Mundka, which is smarting under the ``insult'' of his dismissal, the murder has only inflamed passions against the BJP. ``The BJP ruined its chances by removing Sahib Singh a month before the elections. Is it any way to treat a man? And now the Samata Party has destroyed its chances,'' says a middle-aged villager who works at the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.

A majority of voters believe that the Samata Party which has put up candidates in quite a few of the Outer Delhi constituencies -- Nangloi, Narela, Hastasal -- will neither win nor let the BJP win.

Though they are puzzled by this contest between two parties which are allies at the Centre, they are sure of the outcome. ``There is some trick involved but it is going to backfire on both of them as the Congress will gain from the split in votes,'' says Bhim Singh in Narela.

But won't this ruin Sahib Singh's political career? ``That we don't know. We only understand chief-ministership. The BJP has to be punished for humiliating one of us,'' the villagers say in a unanimous voice.