While an assortment of politicians, which includes the moneyed and men with a criminal past, make hay, India's elections are hailed as democracy at its best, though democracy has not done much to eliminate the myriad social ills gripping the country.

Nowhere in the world is economic disparity or the gap between the rich and the poor so visible as in India.

In 2004, some analysts attributed the victory of the Congress Party to the failure of the then Bharatiya Janatha Party government's economic gains to trickle down to the rural poor.

The BJP came to office in 1998 on a nationalist platform, promising to adopt a Swadeshi economic policy — a kind of be-Indian-and-buy Indian-policy. But soon, it ditched the policy and adopted an all-out market economic policy. It also became a key player in the Western political alliance, especially after the 9/11 attacks.

When the country went to the polls in 2004, the BJP rode on India's economic success which it named "India Shining" and told the masses that continuation of its open-market policy was necessary to face economic challenges, especially those posed by China.

But the voters saw the BJP's India Shining as the rise of India's capitalism, which had been half awake during India's decades of mixed economy shaped by successive Congress-led governments' policies of protectionism. Even the middle class felt that the BJP's India Shining was wanting. They yearned for better jobs and better salaries.

When the Congress Party won the elections in 2004, India's capitalist class, the super rich, saw it as its death knell. The indices of the Mumbai Stock Exchange nose dived and a funeral mood pervaded the market. But India under new Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the architect of India's economic reforms of the 1990s, did not stray far from the path laid out by the outgoing prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. The market reforms continued at a greater pace. Even the presence of the left parties in the coalition did not stop Singh from pursuing liberal economic reforms.

While the BJP government's lopsided or capitalist-biased economic policy and its effects on the rural sector played a bigger role in the electoral victory of Congress in 2004, some analysts said the victory was also due to the political acumen displayed by the Congress leadership in choosing the right allies and partners for the elections. For instance, the Congress Party's alliance with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhakam was a winning formula in the southern Tamil Nadu State, while the understanding the Congress Party reached with India's Communist parties helped the grand old party led by Sonia Gandhi, the daughter-in-law of former prime minister Indira Gandhi and wife of one-time prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, to form a solid coalition government that survived its full five-year term.

With the Congress Party ruling India for a full five-year-term, has it done any better than the BJP? Have the Congress government's economic gains trickled down to the rural areas? Have Indians got better jobs and better pay now?

The answers to these questions are yes and no. The Congress government presented five popular budgets, giving much hope to the poor and the middle class while protecting the capitalist class. The economic growth rate averaged a healthy eight, despite the ripples caused by the global recession at the tail end of the Congress government's term in the form of job losses, especially in the country's outsourcing sector, which depends heavily on contracts from US companies.

In terms of a Common Minimum Programme, which the Congress Party had entered into with its allies in 2004, a National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) was introduced, strengthening the rural economy and checking the migration to cities. The government also implemented a programme to waive off loans of rural farmers and set up Minority Educational Institutions and development funds to help the marginalized people, including India's 140 million Muslims.

On the negative side, Congress has not been successful in closing the gap between the rich and the poor. According to estimates, only about 300 million people of India's 1.2 billion-strong population comprise the "market" — with 220 million living below the poverty line.

Although, the Congress government has taken measures to address grievances of the Muslims, harassment of Muslims — as highlighted in the Sachar Committee Report — continues.

On the question of terrorism, which is an election issue, the Congress government's failure to stop the Mumbai attack has not gone down well with the electorate, though its attempt at making Pakistan a scapegoat had popular support.

Congress has another disadvantage. The Muslim vote is split now. In the past, a vast majority of India's Muslims — 14 percent of India's population — had voted en-bloc for the Congress and allied parties. But now more and more Muslims have turned to regional parties or parties that represent Muslim interests at state-government level. Some of these parties are contesting the elections in alliance with the BJP.

While the Congress Party got the right mix in alliance formation in 2004, it has not been able to make much headway in getting certain parties which are popular at regional level into an electoral alliance this time.

However, in the final analysis, the Congress government's positives outweigh its negatives. Thus the party is expected to secure the largest number of seats at the general elections which will end on May 13.

What about the chances of the BJP? The BJP, despite its Hindutva ideology which comes to the fore when the party is in opposition, disciplined itself to respect the secularism enshrined in the constitution when it was in office from 1998 to 2004. The BJP has also put up a reasonably good show at by-elections and state assembly elections in the past five years. However, when faced with the national elections, it appears to be somewhat under-prepared.

The BJP tried to make political capital out of the Mumbai attack, but it boomeranged, largely because the mood of the populace was national unity at the time of crisis. India's popular television channels such as NDTV were also responsibl, to a great extent, in building up this apolitical mood. Another reason for the BJP's failure to make much headway with its anti-terror policy was the exposure of a Hindutva hand in the Malegaon train blast, for which Muslims were blamed initially.

On the question of the economy, too, the BJP has little ammunition to hit out at the Congress. Despite the adverse effects of the global recession on the economy, the Congress administration has managed to bring down the inflation from the double-digit level a few months ago to a single-digit before the polls started.

The age of BJP leader and prime ministerial aspirant Lal Krishna Advani is another stumbling block. He is 82 while his opponent Manmohan Singh is 77.

Some may say the age gap makes hardly a difference, but the profile of the next-in-line candidates makes a huge difference. There is no match in the BJP for the Congress party's heir apparent, Rahul Gandhi (age 39), who is touted as the prime minister after Manmohan Singh.

BJP president Rajnath Singh (age 58) lacks national appeal while its Gujarat strongman Narendra Modi (59), who was largely responsible for the anti-Muslim riots in the state in 2002 does not command national-level respect.

With the election campaign in full swing, the BJP appears to be running out of ammunition. In desperation, it is once again playing the Ram card with Advani vowing not to say the Hindu prayer "Jai Shri Ram" till the Ram temple is constructed in Ayodhya. Even on this score, the BJP's position is not clear, because, on the one hand, it says it is not ready to accept a court stay order on the construction of the Ram temple and, on the other, it has promised to resolve the crisis through judicial means if it comes to power.

Another phenomenon evident on the Indian political landscape as the country goes to polls is the rise of regional parties. Both Congress and the BJP have been losing their grip at state-level, allowing non-national level parties to emerge stronger in their respective states. These state-level parties have formed a Third Front. Though this front, led by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan Samajwadi Party chief Mayawati, is unlikely to emerge as the outright winner, it could play the kingmaker role if the election produces no clear victor.