Will BJP repeat its 1998 performance with as many as 57 seats? Is Congress reviving itself in the country's largest state which was the party's bastion till 1984 with 83 Lok Sabha seats to its credit that year? If the chances of Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party are looking bleak, who will gain at his cost--Congress or BSP?

These are some of the questions being raised with increasing regularity with less than a month left for the state to go for the first phase of polling.

In the last elections, the Congress could not even open an account while Samajwadi Party won 20 seats and BSP 4. In the 1996 elections, BJP had won 52 seats while the Congress could manage only 5 and Samajwadi Party 16.

The political situation has undergone some changes since. Core BJP issues likeRamjanmabhoomi or Article 370 which swayed the voters of the state no exit no more. Despite external show of strength in the ruling party, anti-incumbency factor cannot be entirely ruled out.

The state BJP had to contend with long internecine fight between the pro and anti Kalyan Singh group. The fight has far from ended. There is only a lull because of the central leadership's pressure on account of the elections. It is bound to impact on the voters, particularly fence sitters.

Despite seemingly adverse conditions, pollsters predict a good performance by BJP in the coming elections. This is mainly on account of continued weakness of the Congress as also fragmentation of non-BJP votes among a plethora of parties.

The Congress party appeared to be looking up in the state soon after the Vajpayee-led coalition government was defeated on the floor of the House. But it could not keep up the tempo because of lack of leadership. While there has been no leadership in the state , the central leadership could notrise to the occasion.

Even the much touted tie-up between the Congress and BSP could not materialise with the latter deciding to contest all the 85 seats. The party could rope in only Ajit Singh's Lok Dal which would be fighting eight seats in western UP. The only silver lining for the Congress, as it appears at the moment, is the reported shifting of Muslim votes from Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party to it. After Singh failed to back up Sonia Gandhi at the Centre following the defeat of the Vajpayee government, Singh's Muslim supporters started deserting him. The general impression in political circles is that these Muslim voters will shift to Congress, at least in this election.

Logically, even the diehard BJP supporters agree that had Congress reached an understanding with BSP, its fortunes would have risen definitely. Not just the BSP Muslim supporters, even the dalits would have voted for the Congress in case of seat adjustment. At the present reckoning both parties would cut each other's votes to thebenefit of the BJP.

According to political observers, the BSP cannot afford to risk losing its dalit votes to the Congress to which these votes originally belonged. BSP, these observers say, may tolerate BJP's rise rather than the rise of the Congress. The argument is that if the Congress rises, it could do so only at the cost of parties like the BSP and the SP.

Imponderables apart, Congress managers fervently hope that the UP voters, particularly Muslims, Christians, backwards and dalits, would help it in a major way. Their calculation is obviously based on fond hope devoid of all logic.

The Congressmen's hope is, at best, based on the party's performance in the remote past when it cornered 83 out of 85 seats in 1984 elections, 51 seats in 1980, 73 in 1971, 47 in 1967, 62 in 1962 and 70 in 1957.