Blame it on Spring fever, or old men in a hurry, or too long a period of stability. There is a rapid movement towards the formation of a Third Front, an alternative to the BJP and the Congress. It was in these very pages that this columnist had written last year of the expeditious coming together of regional satraps frustrated at waiting on the sidelines and not getting their due in Delhi.

Mulayam’s voters are the M+Y (Muslim and Yadav) combination. He, like many others in UP, has relied completely on the political concoction of caste and religion to stay on in power. Giddy with the landslide win in the UP assembly elections last year when Muslims and Yadavs voted en masse for the Samajwadi Party, Mulayam wants to take that one shot at power in Delhi, and for that he is even willing to join hands with Lal Krishna Advani who the Muslims of UP will not forgive for the Babri demolition.