During the fortnight-long campaigning, allegations have flowed thick and fast from the two main parties. If the BJP alleged that there was a Congress conspiracy behind the mustard oil adulteration and the hoarding of onions and salt, the Congress alleged that Sharma was in touch with Swaraj and her husband.

And when the father of the slain Samata Party candidate from Nangoli Jat, Ved Singh, accused former Delhi CM Sahib Singh having a hand in the murder, the clean image of the BJP took its first beating.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Sonia Gandhi addressed rallies in Delhi. Winding up the BJP's election campaign on the Red Fort grounds, Vajpayee today accused the Congress of trying to justify the Emergency on spurious grounds and charged the party with raising issues that were detrimental to the security and honour of the country merely to gain petty political mileage.

This election to the 70-seat Delhi Assembly appears to have attracted as much national attention as the last Lok Sabha elections. Onions have been the rallying point for any criticism of ever-rising prices, with all Congress candidates literally weighing themselves against onions and the BJP retaliating by weighing themselves against coins.

The Congress, known to be radar-less outside power, gained mileage out of an aggressive attack by Sonia Gandhi. Not only did she take on the BJP and the Sangh Parivar in her campaigns, she also attacked Vajpayee head-on, describing him as ``the weakest PM in Indian history''.

The city BJP government, however, handed burning issues like the price rise and the edible oil fiasco to a till-recently slothful Congress on a platter. A week ago, when a Congress candidate was asked what issue he was raising at his campaigns, he promptly replied: ``I didn't have to raise any issue on my own. Wherever I went, people came rushing with complaints about the price rise. We didn't even have to devise a strategy''.

Both the BJP and the Congress unleashed a galaxy of star campaigners to woo the Delhi voters, who are threatening to abstain in large numbers. However, other than Sunil Dutt of the Congress and Shatrughan Singh of BJP, none of the other stars managed to make an impression.

Prime Minister Vajpayee and Home Minister L.K. Advani addressed at least eight to 10 rallies each in various Delhi constituencies, providing an indication of how important riding to power in the Capital is for the BJP.