Congress candidates gave the slum dwellers lessons on the art of hitting the vote-seeker with onions and potatoes -- if the party concerned was the BJP.

``BJP ke shashan mein, aloo pyaaz rashan mein...'' chanted the candidates and hangers-on who are all over the Capital on padyatras trying to rouse the poor against the wrongs of the ruling party. This slogan featured prominently in Kiran Chowdhury's campaign, which began in her Delhi Cantonment constituency on Saturday. Another one was ``Aloo pyaaz tel khatham, BJP ka khel khatam''.

Food was the main ingredient in all the speeches and slogans shouted out by Congress candidates as they went about wooing the hutment dwellers. There were generous helpings of salt too.

The BJP also had plenty of salt in its armoury. A BJP election campaign committee press release, for instance, sought to make preemptive strikes at the Congress by saying that the salt shortage was artificial, that the opposition party had created it for political gains. The future offers plenty of laddoos for the slum dwellers. For instance, the Congress rebel candidate from the Gole Market constituency, Romesh Sabharwal, is to be weighed in laddoos by the hutment dwellers themselves tomorrow. A press release which has apparently originated from the JJ clusters of Gole Market states: ``JJ clusters are weighing Romesh Sabharwal with laddoos and they will distribute each and every laddoo in the JJ clusters of the area.'' The provocation for such a display of affection is apparently the fact that the candidate has provided them with sewer and sanitation facilities, stopped the demolition of jhuggies etc.

Mukesh Agarwal, the Congress candidate from the Hastsaal constituency whose padyatras begin at 7 in the morning and end at 9 in the night, has promised to make the construction of jhuggis a criminal offence if voted to power, and give the slum dwellers 25-yard plots. Almost all the candidates have been on their feet since Saturday, trudging along on endless padyatras. Whether it is Jaspal Singh of the Congress, who is fighting the election from the Tilak Nagar constituency, or the BJP's Rajendra Gupta, who is standing from Malviya Nagar. Despite the fact that Gupta has been criticised for almost everything ill in his constituency from erratic power supply to water shortage, he walked to the beat of drums promising potatoes and onions, among other things.

Congress party workers said that the padyatras would continue till November 16 as this was the best way to reach the voter. Kiran Chowdhury visited the slums of Mayapuri and Nangal Raya on Sunday in her Delhi Cantonment constituency, while Manju Talwar, wife of Chaudhary's counterpart from the BJP Karan Singh Talwar, resorted to door-to-door campaigning. Another spouse doing the rounds was Madhu Khandelwal, wife of Nirmal Khandelwal, the BJP candidate from the Paharganj constituency.

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan was supplementing his itinerary with appearances on cable television, complete with a list of his achievements and promises. His speeches, which defend his party's actions on all counts from onion prices to dropsy, are being telecast in most parts of east Delhi.

Meanwhile, rebellious notes are also being struck everywhere. The Janakpuri Block Congress Committee has quit en masse in protest against the official choice of candidate Shiv Kumar Sondhi. The DPCC in Karol Bagh has also expressed its displeasure over the official candidates standing from the five seats here. It is being said that Meira Kumar has given tickets to dummies like 71-year-old Moti Lal Bokolia to safeguard her influence in the area.