Addressing his first public meeting at Sodepur (Dum Dum constituency) in North 24 Parganas, West Bengal, on Monday, Mahajan was at his slanderous best and Sonia was his Target no 1. ``Since Sonia Gandhi married our Raju (Rajiv Gandhi), she wants to become Prime Minister. If Nawaj Sharif's daughter becomes the bahu of an Indian family, she may also want to become PM,'' he said, linking Sonia's foreign origin obliquely to a ``conspiracy'' against the BJP Government. ``I have a serious doubt that our Government fell because of a conspiracy hatched by some western powers. There are some foreigners here too who are involved in this. Some of these foreignerscame directly, some indirectly.''

Mahajan remained focused on his hate object with one-liners which reduce any political debate to the level of a farce. ``Sonia says she is ready to die for her motherland, but actually India is her mother-in-law's land,'' he said with that trademark smirk.

Vajpayee was presented as a foil. ``Sonia left her country because she got married to a foreigner while Atalji remained a bachelor because of his country,'' he observed. Playing on the Kargil crisis, he posed to his audience: ``Pakistan is a wounded serpent and will strike back. In case of another war with that country, who do you want to see as PM? Atalji who has got 50 years of experience behind him or Sonia who has never fought a panchayat election even?'' This is, perhaps, the closest he came to actually comparing the two candidates without trivialising the issue.

Not that Mahajan alone was to be blamed. The level of political debate in West Bengal this time has taken a deep plunge and slander and abuse havebecome the order of the day. Before Mahajan, clad in a spotless white kurta pyajama, took the stage, local leaders of the BJP and Trinamool Congress had set the tone by indulging in Jyoti Basu-bashing.

Speaker after speaker targeted Basu with comments like these ``If Sonia becomes PM, Basu will take off his dhoti and dance'' and ``this Basu wants to hold on to Sonia's pallu to become Prime Minister''.

And the 5000-strong crowd, comprising mostly labourers and middle class people of this industrial town, enjoyed every moment, responding with applause.

This was how Mahajan explained to the crowd the swearing in of H D Deve Gowda as Prime Minister. ``After the 1996 elections when Atalji's Government fell after 13 days, the Third Front leaders sat together in a meeting chaired by Laloo. He said `I am the original Bihari and after Atal Behari, I should be PM. Since no one supported him, he said `let any gadha-ghora (donkey or horse) become PM. Since Gowda did not understand Hindi, he got up and said withfolded hands `thank you, thank you'''. The crowd roared in laughter.

Mahajan, however, was cautious about picking on Basu except on two occasions. ``Communists are in power in two states Kerala by the side of the Arabian Sea and Bengal by the side of the Bay of Bengal. Give them a small push and they will fall into the sea,'' he told his audience.

On another occasion, after much prodding from the crowd to say something about Basu, he said: ``Maine abhi tak bhojan nahin kiya, kisi achche aadmika naam le lete (My meal is not yet over, you should have taken the name of some good person)."

No doubt he got the applause of the crowd like a stand-up comedian but whether the BJP and the Trinamool can rake in the votes remains to be seen.