Yesterday?s front page analysis in The Hindu by Neena Vyas over the ever-flip-flopping pall-bearer India's secular polity, L.K. Advani?s yet another flip. The master of subterfuge has of course denied the ?malicious rumour? that he wanted to be accorded the same facilities as the Prime Minister during the election campaign. Well, well, well.

The poor former resident of Sindh, Pakistan, cannot understand why people should be critical of the ?India Shining? campaign. ?Citizens are now confident that India is on the road to achieving superpower status,? and, according to the Deputy Prime Minister of India, ?to lead the world like it once used to.?

That?s not surprising, Mr. Advani is given to myopic vision, he is not aware that the ?total number of famished has increased by 19 million between 1995-97 and 1999-2002?, as quoted by Sripad Motiram et al in yesterday?s edition of The Hindu. They don?t count for much in the Deputy Prime Minister of India?s scheme of things.

The New India Express in doing good work on the election coverage. I hope to follow closely the Lok Sabha elections with special focus on Tamil Nadu, for I live here and Karnataka, where I am from. Of course the pan-Indian situation is equally important.

Yesterday?s NIE had a two interesting tables I reproduce here. The first table lists the constituency-wise contestants. The parties contesting as part of the DMK alliance versus the AIADMK alliance. The last column has the party affiliation of the sitting MP.

The second table is very interesting. It shows the ?battle lines?. As expected the DMK is up against the AIADMK in 14 seats. But surprisingly is contesting only one seating against the BJP. Note: Mr. Vaiko is not contesting against the BJP.

The CPI and CPI(M) are contesting against the BJP in one constituency each. A direct left versus right contest.