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ONE-WAY POLITICAL TRAFFIC

The sharp pickup in the political traffic on the eve of the parliamentary elections has but one clear message written all over it: the Narendra Modi-led-BJP is on a winning streak. There can be no mistakes about it. Opinion polls, even the ones tainted by hidden cash payments, cannot all be wrong. Nor can the antennae of the grassroots politicians be emitting wrong signals. A virtual electoral gale is blowing against the ruling Congress and in favour of the BJP. Leave aside the real numbers for the moment. The usually reliable satta market has punters staking on Modi winning a minimum of 223 seats. Yes, two hundred and twenty three Lok Sabha seats. And the operative word is minimum. If more proof was needed of the rout that awaits the Congress, consider the return of the great secularist Ram Vilas Paswan to the NDA this week. Do not forget he has dumped the far bigger secular warriors Sonia Gandhi and Lalu Prasad to team up with Modi. And once you consider that Paswan had tut- tutted a lot about the 2002 riots while leaving the NDA, you realise the true import of his action. Reading the mood of the voters in Bihar, Paswan has chosen well, never mind those opportunistic noises about the Gujarat riots a decade or so ago. There are other notable political players who are headed for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and in other states. At least three sitting Congress MPs from UP were reportedly in talks with the saffron party, while significant leaders of the Scheduled Castes were already committed to contest the poll on the BJP symbol. Udit Raj, a longtime champion of the Dalit cause, who had frontally challenged Mayawati for having turned the BSP into a real estate company, is now a covenanted member of the BJP. This is big, as The news report that the saintly Arvind Kejriwal wants to retain the official house given to him in Lu-