Mayawati (left) has twice before allied with the BJP, but if she does so again, she might end up in a difficult position like Mehbooba Mufti (right), who joined hands with the BJP in Jammu and Kashmir

Thanks to some good ground reporting, a picture is emerging in the election to Uttar Pradesh’s Assembly. The stakes are high not just for who will administer the famously ungovernable state, but for helping determine who will be the next President of India in July, and also in helping BJP president Amit Shah, if his party is successful in forming government, in his strategy for the re-election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Hence the election is being fought like a war —Punjab is over and in any case the anti-incumbency there was so high that all the BJP cadre could do was help the Congress cash in on the anti-incumbency against the BJP’s senior state partner Akali Dal. Both Shah and Modi would any day prefer Congress party vice-president Rahul Gandhi to remain their chief opponent than the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Arvind Kejriwal.