When Sushil Kumar Shinde, an amiable Congress leader without any mass base, was handpicked by Sonia Gandhi to head the Congress-led Democratic Front alliance in Maharashtra in January 2003, even the Opposition seemed to welcome the ever-smiling chief minister. A year and a half later, Shinde's admirers, as well as critics, are still trying to figure out how he manages to retain his smile despite the problems he faces.

CHOSEN ONE: Shinde (left) was handpicked by Sonia to be chief minister

The recent past has not seen much going right for Shinde or the Government. The ballooning debt burden, now edging past Rs 94,000 crore, has left Maharashtra's finances in a precarious state. The Telgi stamp paper scam has claimed several top police officers and the deputy chief minister, Chhagan Bhujbal, and cast a long shadow on the ruling party. The state was in the grip of a two-year drought with crop failures and farmer suicides while malnutrition deaths made the northern districts of India's most industrialised state look like sub-Saharan Africa. For a while it looked like the Congress-NCP could do no right and Opposition leader Narayan Rane could well have begun readying to return to the chief minister's official residence at Malabar Hill.

Then, the Lok Sabha polls happened. While the ruling party marginally improved its seat position, it lost 10 out of 11 seats in its stronghold Vidarbha. While the Opposition brooded over the drubbing it received in its bastion, Mumbai, where it lost five out of six seats, Shinde seized the initiative.

Unveiling a massive election eve sop opera worth Rs 2,000 crore, Shinde doled out free power to farmers, waived debts for marginal farmers and seemingly stole the Shiv Sena's election agenda which Balasaheb Thackeray had announced in Aurangabad soon after the Lok Sabha debacle.

SLIPPER ATTACK: Activists of the Shiv Sena beat Aiyar's effigy with chappals

Until Union Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar decided to gift the Sena-BJP an electoral issue by attacking Maharashtrian icon Veer Savarkar, the Opposition's only hope was a massive anti-incumbency wave. Now, they are jubilant. "They are making mistake after mistake," says BJP leader Gopinath Munde, days after Aiyar's fresh fulmination comparing Savarkar to Mohammad Ali Jinnah. "We won't stop until they apologise," Munde added.

The apology hasn't been forthcoming yet, though both Shinde and MPCC President Prabha Rau have distanced themselves from Aiyar's tirade. But the damage has already been done and the Opposition hopes to capitalise on the issue at least in the urban areas.

The Sena, meanwhile, has jettisoned its Mee Mumbaikar slogan used during the Lok Sabha polls when it became identified with attacks on north Indians in Mumbai. It is now groping around for other emotive issues like Savarkar, which will resonate with its traditional Hindu vote bank. Even to the extent of backing a public nuisance like singing of bhajans on Mumbai's local trains when Muslim organisations demanded similar permission to sing qawwalis on trains.

Congress leaders concede the polls could see a neck and neck finish and are preparing for a hung Assembly where a handful of Independents could decide who rules the state. The rise of the BSP in Maharashtra is also giving the Congress sleepless nights and has given the Sena-BJP something to cheer about. "They are welcome to contest the polls, they will only split the anti-saffron vote," says Munde. The BSP, which polled over 10 lakh votes all over state in the May Lok Sabha elections, did not win a single seat but ensured the defeat of 10 out of 11 NCP-Congress candidates in Vidarbha. In most cases the votes polled by the BSP candidates were greater than the losing margins of heavyweights like the Congress' Rau and NCP's Praful Patel.

The BSP also ate into the traditional vote banks of the Republican Party of India (RPI) factions, leading to the defeat of its leaders like Prakash Ambedkar. BSP President Mayawati, who camped in Mumbai for a week in August, has announced the party will field candidates in all 288 seats and will not go in for alliances. "We believe in far-sighted politics and not seat adjustments for short-term gains," says its state Convener Ramachal Rajbhar.

To call Maharashtra's October 13 elections critical would be a huge understatement. Riding on the results are not only the fortunes of the Congress-NCP alliance in the state, but that of the UPA in Delhi. Victory or defeat for either formation could have repercussions in Delhi.