What are we to make of these psephological tea leaves from the heart of India? With Uttar Pradesh elections in the nineties hopelessly contingent more on caste and community politics, and less on more fundamental issues, in a fiercely fought four-horse race the permutations and combinations can be endless. For the BJP the overriding hope would no doubt have been that division of votes among its three opponents would offset the disadvantages of incumbency as well as a suicidally faction-ridden state unit, resulting in low morale among party workers. This hope has been somewhat belied by the low turnout on Saturday, with large chunks of the upper castes -- the core of the party's votebank -- abstaining from their date with indelible ink. The fact that the party has rushed its best campaigners to Uttar Pradesh and isexhorting its workers to ensure a bigger voter turnout on September 25 and October 3 is a comment on the enormous worries besetting it.

For the Congress, this marks the end of a dismal decade and the beginning of a revival in its traditional bastion. Not only has its president Sonia Gandhi been drawing crowds, the somewhat uncertain fortunes of the two wannabe kingmakers in Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati, can only be good news for the grand old party. Still, the question is, what will be the magnitude of the Congress revival? The grand social coalition of yore may still be a distant dream, but indications that the Samajwadi Party's voteshare on September 18 could be as low as 16 per cent (compared to 30 per cent in 1998) means that the Muslims are returning to the Congress fold. Reports, however, that the BSP's grip on the Dalits is still secure could limit the Congress' gains. Interestingly, the Uttar Pradesh tally will not only determine in part the contours of the next Lok Sabha, it isbound to have an impact on the future of the Kalyan Singh government.