DESPERATE TIMES, DESPERATE MEASURES

t’s a trying time in the ‘Hindi Heartland’. Both Rahul Gandhi’s Congress and BJP’s altered avatar under Narendra Modi are quite literally scraping the barrel in a decidedly desperate search for new allies. Besides parleys with existing regional outfits in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the national parties are talking shop with rank newcomers, political entities that seem to have cropped up purely in response to the prevailing season of elections.

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