He is the BJP's in-house itinerant. Deputy Prime Minister L. K. Advani's 1990 Somnath-Ayodhya rath yatra reworked India's political discourse.Two yatras later, he seeks to travel along parts of Prime Minister A. B. Vajpayee's Golden Quadrilateral dream project. But the Ayodhya man's mantra has changed. Along his Kanyakumari-Amritsar and Porbandar-Puri odyssey his message is development and governance. BJP General Secretary Pramod Mahajan will play emcee. Journeys can be both internal and external. Advani emphasises that this yatra lacks the prefix "rath".

— By Rajeev Deshpande

	SOP-O-METE AHMEDABAD: Modi announces Gujarat farmers will be charged uniform user charges. This means an expenditure of Rs 14 crore per annum. BANGALORE: City mayor says plans are afoot to improve 1,000 km of roads, develop 100 more parks and boulevards and 200 playgrounds. CHENNAI: Jayalalithaa lifts ban on sacrifice of animals in temples and waives surcharge on cooperative housing loans worth Rs 128 crore. LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh Government hikes salary and perks of MLAs by Rs 9,000 burdening the exchequer by Rs 5.8 crore a year. THE NUMBERS 3 Number of voters at Chako I B polling booth in Arunachal Pradesh. 27 Number of seats won by regional parties in the 1989 elections. 158 Number of seats won by regional outfits in 1999 polls. 8000 Tonne of paper saved. Thanks to EVMs. LAST WORD "Let India shine in the conduct of elections." T.S. KRISHNAMURTHY, CEC
1 Emphasis on symbolism. Vivekananda brand of Hindutva and nationalism. 2 BJP polled 27 per cent votes for its 7 MPs 1991. It hopes to gain in Karnataka. 3 Kalyan Singh's home turf. BJP seeks to maximise gains from his return. 4 Congress infighting offers SAD and BJP a chance to reap a golden harvest. 5 BJP aims for a centper cent result. Will build momentum in Modiland. 6 Reassuring the faithful. Will tell Ram bhakts that "mandir wahin banega". 7 Hone NDA edge in Bihar and Jharkhand. Polarise the vote opposed to Laloo Yadav. 8 Stem rise of Congress and transform the finale into a poll juggernaut.
103 Number of women who contested 1999 elections.

Not just the Gandhis, where it is Sonia-Rahul vs Varun, but a number of other families are on opposing sides for E-2004. Some call it the ideological divide, others just hedging of bets. Take a look at the E-Divide.

LAL VS LAL
Om Prakash Chautala's INLD may no longer be in the NDA but his brother Ranjit Singh has moved to the BJP.

GANDHI VS GANDHI
The Mahatma is divided. Saraswati, wife of Kantilal Gandhi, is with the BJP while grandson Tushar is with the Samajwadi Party.

SHUKLA VS SHUKLA
In Chhattisgarh, V. C. Shukla is in the NCP while brother Shyama Charan is in the Congress.

SINGH VS SINGH
Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh's brother Lakshman has joined the BJP.

LONE VS LONE
Abdul Gani Lone's sons, Bilal and Sajjad, take turns at being the chairman of the J&K People's Conference.

PATIL VS PATIL
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Vijaysinh Mohite Patil is with the NCP. His brother Pratap is BJP MLA from Solapur.

— By Priya Sahgal

UTTAR PRADESH
Mulayam Shining

f "India is shining" after five years of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA Government, Uttar Pradesh has jumped into a "golden era" in just five months of Mulayam Singh Yadav's rule. At least this is what a multi-crore rupee media blitz launched by the state Government wants everyone to believe. "In the five months itself everyone is feeling excited and convinced that every step is a jump towards a golden future." Interestingly, in a bid to outshine the "India Shining" campaign series, the sp Government is also giving free publicity to the country's top corporate groups like Sahara India, Birla, Godrej and Ambani for the contribution they are yet to make to the state. A multi-coloured, smiling Mulayam screams through front-page advertisements that with these industrial houses "Uttar Pradesh is becoming the capital of industries". The ad blitz has been designed by a firm which wants everyone to believe that "the bold initiatives taken under the leadership of the chief minister have resulted in the birth of a new Uttar Pradesh". However, the multi-crore rupee media blitz launched by the BJP-led government of Rajnath Singh on the eve of the 2002 assembly polls had pushed the party (BJP) to the third position. Some of the ad agencies are still waiting for the bills to be cleared.

— By Farzand Ahmed

KIRIT SOMAIYA
SMS Bhai

Kirit Somaiya has found a novel way to reach to lakhs of his voters in his Mumbai North-East constituency without breaching any of the Election Commission's codes of conduct for the campaign. Under the pretext of voting awareness he has already sent out 44,000 SMSS in his constituency with texts like "naam gayab in voter's list, check kiya, aap shift ho gaye ho, aap 18 ke ho, helpline ko phone kare-Kirit Somaiya". He has launched 10 helplines. He has also taken 600 call lines to generate automatic 55-second voice messages about things like the importance of voting and missing names in voter's list. Somaiya hired a studio in Juhu to record voting awareness messages in his voice in three languages. So far he has sent out over 3.5 lakh on random basis. He has taken 116 MTNL lines to generate similar messages for one lakh voters a day on surname basis. Somaiya has bought five computers to send out e-mails-in the first batch he has a databank of 55,000 chartered accountants. Of course there is no guarantee that SMS will translate into votes.

— By Sheela Raval