Wherever Chautala's Indian National lok Dal (INLD) is backing the BJP, the candidate is in eclipse. This is a war of larger-than-life cutouts -- the slogans are all for the Tau, his son and A B Vajpayee, and the poor candidate is cut right out of the picture. ``I know it's difficult to believe, but we're all Congressi,'' says Ram Nath Moga in Julena, a small market-town at the meeting point of Hisar, Jind, Sonipat and Rohtak, the four districts with a significant Jat population. Naturally, he will be voting the BJP.

Wouldn't it be simpler to vote the Congress in an election bereft of local issues? Moga grins broadly and mimes a pair of breasts. They don't likeSonia? He is offended: ``We just love her. She is the bahu of the Jat biradari (another grin, another lewd gesture).'' In the marketplace, a street entertainer is singing a fresh take on Jhoot bole kawwa kate, the song that was once Mrs Gandhi's bugbear. It is about a party of government-breakers.

While Sonia only draws humour that would leave M S Gill cold, A B Vajpayee's image has reached magnificent proportions. He has assumed V P Singh's mantle -- the man wronged by all. Kargil has helped, and the electorate frequently compares him with Lal Bahadur Shastri. ``Vajpayee's image will swing the vote 3 per cent in our favour,'' says Manu Beniwal, who is running Amar Singh Chautala's (the chief minister's son) campaign in Bhiwani. ``In Haryana, that's just short of a wave.'' Every vote polled by the INLD will actually be in Vajpayee's name -- with the blessings of Devi Lal. Says former chief minister Bhajan Lal in Karnal: ``Do mahine ka mehman hai, their alliance. When it's over,Chautala will be finished.''

Curiously, both key figures are stand-alones. Voters have no love lost for their henchmen. L K Advani aka Ram Avatar? They wave dismissively. Pramod Mahajan? ``Koi Bambaiyya launda hai (Some brat from Mumbai).'' In Jind town, day labourers hoot derisively at BJP workers driving past in a truck. They call them pawwa tattoos -- spavined nags rented for the price of a quarter-bottle. Chautala, whose goons skim the fat of the land to the detriment of Devi Lal's image, is not trusted. ``They grab everything,'' says a Chamar youth who will be voting the Congress. ``They say Tau will foot the bill. Tau, Tau, who is this sister-seducing Tau anyway?''

As Devi Lal reaches mythic proportions in his declining years, sentiment against his son is hardening. On the back-country road through Meham, all is calm. Not a soul in sight in the heavy heat of afternoon. Doves snooze on the asphalt. Long iguanas cross over in slow-motion, confident they will not be run down. But on Sunday,people expect the peace will be broken again. In Meham proper, the fuse is always lit at two polling booths, at the government primary school and the dharamshala nearby. On the road between them is the shop of Ram Gopal, a Valmiki. ``Not this time,'' he says. ``We will meet force with overwhelming force.'' But he and others of his community freely admit that sentiment would have been less sharply polarised if Devi Lal had been at the helm of affairs.

Devi Lal is not campaigning this year. He is in his native village of Chautala in Hisar, mourning the death of his youngest-born, Jagdish. But the INLD, which has come so far on the strength of his name, is still hopeful. ``He's in his nineties now; he's very moody,'' says Beniwal in Bhiwani. ``There's no telling what he might do till the last day of campaiging. The mere news of his advent would swing us another three per cent of the vote. That would mean a sweep.''

When the roadshow managers of the INLD and the BJP draft itineraries for their starcampaigners, they religiously include a single blank column under the heading: DEVI LAL. The day it is filled, Chautala's party believes it will be within striking distance of all ten seats in Haryana.