True to form the time-tested weapons of corruption and communalism have been brought out and dusted, and dress rehearsals have begun in right earnest.

While the Bharatiya Janata Party hopes to tie down the recently-deposed Congress leadership by corruption charges, its ally, the Goa Rajiv Congress headed by Chief Minister Dr Wilfred D'Souza, is going all out to woo the minorities in competition with the Congress (I).

The BJP which came within a whisker of bagging both the seats from Goa in the last Lok Sabha election already smelled victory when it lopped the Pratapsinh Rane government and installed the Goa Rajiv Congress government.

The BJP now hopes to deliver the final coup de grace to the Congress by getting the state police to name former power minister Mauvin Godinho in its charge-sheet on the power rebate scandal.

Though thepolice are not commenting on the case, the much publicised interrogations of personnel on the ex-minister's staff are sufficient grist to the BJP's mill. Buoyed by this, the party is now re-examining the transactions of various state-owned corporations and the Industry ministry which was then headed by the present Congress leader of the opposition, Luizinho Faleiro.

With the saffron party challenging the Congress for the first time in a straight fight here in assembly elections, the latter is wooing the minority vote banks. Last month, the Congress high-command asked Pratapsinh Rane to step down and installed Faleiro as CLP leader. On Monday, firebrand politician Churchill Alemao was appointed Congress working president.

Between them, Faleiro and Alemao are raising the bogey of persecution among the minorities, particularly the Catholics who are 38 per cent of the population. The nuns' rape in Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh, being the latest issue.

In the series of attacks on the saffron forces, Faleiro's menhave blasted them for the attacks on Christians. Thanks to his alliance with the BJP, D'Souza too is guilty by association.

A dam on the Mahdei river flowing from Karnataka to Goa, proposed twenty years ago, has also come in handy for the Congress. Its case is that the dam -- to be built in Karnataka -- would curtail water supply to Goa. Congressmen are also activating the state's powerful environmental lobby against the project.

The ruling party is not lagging behind in the wooing of minority voters either. In a publicly circulated petition, D'Souza appealed to the Centre to help lift the ban on dhirios - traditional Goan bull-fights.

Nearly 500 families, mostly Catholics, depend on this sport for survival. Other highlights of the Goa Rajiv Congress include protests against an unauthorised chapel by the Margao town planning authorities and the allotment of land for a Muslim cemetery. Even the Goa state OBC Corporation has a vice-president belonging to the minority community.

While the Congresshas bagged Churchill Alemao and his two MLAs, D'Souza has secured the support of the UGDP rank and file which did not merge with the Congress. Alemao, who founded the UGDP, is now trying to get its symbol -- two leaves -- frozen by the Election Commission.

Though the term of the present assembly expires only after a year, the tenure of the D'Souza government continues to be uncertain. The Congress is wooing back some Goa Rajiv Congress MLA led by Irrigation Minister Dayanand Narvekar. D'Souza however bought himself time by wangling an assurance from Prime Minister A B Vajpayee that the Goa assembly would be dissolved if his government was toppled.