The bad news for the Congress and the UPA government it leads, it seems, is never-ending. The BJP is gleefully riding the Narendra Modi wave; he was a big hit in Tamil Nadu, managing to charm not only long-time friend and well-wisher AIADMK General-Secretary Ms Jayalalithaa, over a grand, 45-item Pongal lunch, but also the crowd that turned up to hear him at a meeting organised by the Editor of Tughlaq, Mr Cho Ramaswamy.

In Maharashtra, too, the Gujarat Chief Minister created waves and never dithered at what he does best — minority bashing. Christening himself with much fanfare as the “custodian of the Gujarat tijori (safe)” and saying that he was keeping it safe for the people of Gujarat, he sarcastically described how the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, wanted to reserve India’s tijori for the Muslims. He also talked about an efficient and incorruptible administration, better health-care for the masses, etc.

But watching his body language and hearing his triumphant rhetoric, it was amply clear that Mr Modi has decided to bank mainly on the communally divisive card that got him such a rich dividend in Gujarat, and that the BJP juggernaut is on a roll, with its star campaigner on board. Its first destination is the election in two State Assemblies — Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan — with the next, and most important, halt being the Lok Sabha elections in 2009.

As though a resurgent BJP is not giving the Congress-led UPA enough sleepless nights, raising the banner of revolt from another side is the UP Chief Minister, Ms Mayawati.

Not only has she greeted with utter contempt any suggestion about an electoral alliance with the Congress — first in the UP elections and more recently in Gujarat, where she successfully chipped away at the anti-BJP vote-bank — she is now coming out with all kinds of fantastic charges against Congress leaders, including that of a plot to murder her.

The UP Chief Minister, Ms Mayawati

Right now the bahenji, who delivered a terrific shock to the Samajwadi Party, the BJP and the Congress in last year’s UP elections, is busy organising a grassroots base for her party — something the Congress appears to believe it does not need, be it in Gujarat or elsewhere — in Orissa.

According to a news report in The Pioneer dated January 21, Ms Mayawati, at present on a two-day visit to Orissa to expand her political base, was given such a huge police security detail that the Orissa Chief Minister, Mr Naveen Patnaik, “reportedly asked his aide whether the President of India was visiting Bhubaneswar without his knowledge. Pat came the reply: ‘No Sir, Mayawati is on a tour to the capital city’.”

The report said Mr Patnaik was surprised, and perhaps outraged, that Ms Mayawati’s two-day private visit — she was not even a State guest — should be given security that befitted, or even exceeded, that of the Prime Minister or the President.

Others might take lightly Bahenji’s ambition of becoming the Prime Minister of India in the near future, but obviously the top brass in the Orissa Police think otherwise. And in all recent interviews, she herself has never shied away from media queries on the possibility of her heading a Third Front that might come to power following the next Lok Sabha election.

In the eventuality of a Third Front emerging the largest group in the next General Elections, the probability of which cannot be ruled out if the Left Parties desert the Congress or vice-versa, if Ms Mayawati can continue her winning spree in India’s largest State, she might yet become Prime Minister.

This may be a depressing thought… after all, what is so cheerful about the possibility of Mr Narendra Modi upsetting Mr L.K. Advani’s claim for the top post if the BJP manages to emerge victorious? But one has only the lacklustre performance of the present regime to blame.

Talk to anyone in the know in Delhi’s political/bureaucratic circles and they will tell you how the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh’s credibility and authority to lead the Union Council of Ministers is waning by the day.

No longer is anybody willing to take seriously considerations about his incorruptibility or decency. “If he cannot be a strong and effective leader, and if his writ doesn’t run in the Council of Ministers, particularly among the Congress ministers who are keen to take their orders from 10 Janpath, then he should call it a day and quit,” is the common refrain.

His inability to push through the civil nuclear deal with the US, what with the series of ultimatums from the Left Front, is seen as the most visible sign of Dr Manmohan Singh’s weakness. The latest example given is the government’s inability to effect even a minor fuel price hike.

Clearly, then, not too many are willing to be charitable to the gentle Sardar, and there is a distinct feeling that power is slowly but surely slipping away from the hands of the Congress. Any electorate gives its chosen government a honeymoon period. For the UPA, that milestone has long come and gone. Had the Congress managed to upset Mr Modi’s winning streak in Gujarat, it would have sensed a change in its favour among the electorate and pressed for an early General Election — if for nothing else, at least in a desperate bid to get the Left off its back.

But the BJP’s resounding victory in Gujarat, which was anyway certain, has pushed the Congress top brass deeper into the morass of uncertainty and inactivity. Predictably, this has given a boost to the ambitions of leaders such as Ms Mayawati, who is having a field day “bringing to justice” her bete noir Mr Mulayam Singh and his family and friends for their “misdeeds”.

Her political acumen and ambition keep pushing her all the time to widen her political base, and hence the present road-show in Orissa, which has put Mr Patnaik on the back-foot.

To add to the woes of the UPA administration, the stock market has tanked too. Whether it is because of global cues, an overbought market or unjustified euphoria on the India story, at the end of the day a blood-bath on Dalal Street does little to enhance the report-card of any government’s achievements.

People who lose their hard-earned money, particularly the small and retail investors, have a penchant for blaming their greed, wrong reading of market signals and imprudent behaviour on the government of the day and its machinery that manages the stock market.

The last few trading sessions have eroded investor wealth by lakhs of crores of rupees; a few more sessions like these and the janata will be pining for the return of the “trader-friendly, business-friendly” BJP. Remember the hiccups the Sensex suffered in 2004, as the equity market was unable to digest the news of the BJP’s defeat?

Of course, later it went on to scale newer and dizzier heights under the original reformists, Dr Manmohan Singh and the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram. But when there is a steep fall and people lose money, the haloes around the heroes simply vanish. And the search begins for new heroes.

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