POLITICAL PARTIES GO TO WAR AS ELECTION APPROACHES

Campaigning for the elections got heated last week with the Congress (I), the BJP, the AIADMK hurling charges at each other. Information & broadcasting minister Pramod Mahajan was at the forefront of some controversial statements. He said that the Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar was like Liz Taylor because he had changed his stance on which party he wants to be on several occasions. ``He marries, divorces, remarries and again divorces," Mahajan said. The Nationalist Congress Party has demanded an apology.

Earlier, the outspoken minister had made a ribbing reference to Congress (I) President and prime ministerial candidate Sonia Gandhi.. ``If we were so keen on having a foreign Prime Minister, why not have Tony Blair or Bill Clinton, or even Monica Lewinsky?'' he had asked.

This got the Congress (I) livid with rage and they demanded an apology which he tendered. Meanwhile, defence minister George Fernandes added fuel to the fire by saying that all that Sonia Gandhi has given to India are her two children.

The name-calling got so out of hand that the Election Commission announced that there would be no personal witch-hunts and dirty linen washing in public.

The Congress (I) also announced a reversal of its election plank when Sonia Gandhi said that the party was open to coalition politics. Earlier, the party's position was that it would not entertain a coalition government. Gandhi took this step, despite a snub by the Tamil Nadu AIADMK chief Jayalalitha at a function addressing voters.

While the BJP has been tomtomming its Kargil success and the role played by Indian soldiers, the latter has been accusing it of hijacking the Indian army and for the deaths of its soldiers. It has been accusing the government of sleeping on the job during its Peace talks with Pakistan when it was actually encouraging intrusions into India. This has met with flak from politicians who have said that Gandhi was playing into Pakistan's hands by blaming Vajpayee for everything.

The Congress (I) has roped in Gandhi's daughter Priyanka to campaign for her in Bellary where she is being challenged by former I&B minister Sushma Swaraj. Gandhi is likely to take the assistance of her son too in her election campaign.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission's ban on political ads on television channels may go for a six with the recently-launched Jain TV chief Dr J.K. Jain announcing that his channel would accept advertising from political parties; it was not up to the Commission to tell television channels what they should be doing, he says.