This is a piece I wrote for - and broadcast on - BBC radio's 'From Our Own Correspondent': you can see all my FOOC  pieces here. AW

These photos of me were taken by the renowned Bob Nickelsberg - his attached note read: 'Andy, Walking & Talking during a forgettable election month.' True, it wasn't the most exciting of elections - or of results. As I recall, these photos were taken outside Parliament as MPs gathered in Central Hall there for the first time after the vote. I think I was being interviewed live on the BBC World Service.

INDIA VOTES - May 1996

The world's biggest ever exercise in democracy is almost complete. Already two-thirds of the lectorate have voted in India's general election. By Tuesday evening, almost 600 million Indians will have had the chance to cast their ballots. It's not simply the scale of the contest which is remarkable - with 5 million scrutineers, one-and-a-half million police on election duty and 850,000 polling stations - but also the starkness of the choice confronting the electorate. Andrew Whitehead has been out with election candidates in various parts of the country, and assesses what's been a gruelling campaign:

There's one promise that India's prime minister has failed to keep. A broken pledge for which the country's politicians and reporters will not lightly forgive him.

It must be almost two years ago that Mr Narasimha Rao told a rally at Delhi's imposing Red Fort that the general election would be advanced a little. Polling would be held, he said, before the scorching heat of summer.

Well, here we are in May - North India is sweltering in temperatures above forty degrees. And more than a third of the country has still to vote.

In the folklore of Indian politics, candidates trying to impress how hard they have been campaigning around their giant-size constituencies boast of mouthfuls of dust they've swallowed. In this election, everyone on the campaign trail has been gulping down dust by the dishfull.

Laloo Prasad Yadav has been churning up vast plumes of dust with his campaign helicopter. He began life - as he proudly recounts - herding buffalo. He's one of India's new breed of leaders - from the poor, of the poor, for the poor. He's a peasant politician - India's answer to Nikita Khruschev. He chews tobacco, keeps cows at the back of his official residence, and spices his speeches with earthy rural metaphors.

A couple of years ago, people laughed at Laloo. The Delhi establishment, English speaking and western oriented, wouldn't take this rural upstart seriously. They have learnt their lesson. Laloo is now the national president of a major party, the Janata Dal. He's the chief minister of India's second most populous state, Bihar. What's more, he's well into his second term in office - quite an achievement, given India's demanding and quixotic electorate.

For generations, India's champions of the low caste and underprivileged have themselves been well-heeled and well dressed. Take the country's Communist parties - several politburo members and similar are British-trained barristers, or from upper crust brahmin families.

Now new leaders like Laloo are succeeding in tapping the electoral potential of their own people, those from low castes. The basic demographic fact of life in India is this - the poor are in the majority.

Those from what are called backward castes, who for centuries have been restricted to the menial jobs, make up 52% of the population. Even more wretched are the scheduled castes, the one-time untouchables, who still do most of India's dirty work -they account for another 16%.

Then there are two other hard-done-by groups: the 70 million or so tribal people, and well over a hundred million Muslims. Add all that up - and there's not a lot left. Yet the 12% of the population from the top Hindu castes - the brahmin elite and the trading and landowning castes - has provided India with every prime minister it's ever had.

Slowly but surely, a revolution is being wrought in the world's largest democracy. The poor and the dispossessed are advancing towards power in Delhi. It may not happen this time - but it's the way the wind is blowing.

Yet there are other breezes billowing across the Indian political landscape. The Hindu nationalists of the BJP are almost certain to secure more seats than ever before - indeed, several opinion polls have suggested that they will emerge as the largest party in Parliament.

That would indeed mark a seismic shift in Indian politics. The BJP says, with some justification, that India has had one party government for almost half-a-century. Even during the two brief interregnums in Congress party rule, the men in power were by-and-large Congress defectors.

The BJP represents a different political tradition. Where the Congress has sought consensus, and argued that a country with such religious diversity must remain secular, the main opposition party stands for an assertively, aggressively Hindu national identity. Whatever anyone's religious affiliation, says the BJP, when it comes to culture, all true Indians are Hindus. The sort of language which, understandably, makes the Muslim minority feel insecure.

So while populists and the left are trying to use caste to excite passions and attract votes, the right-wing BJP is relying on religion. It believes an avowedly Hindu political agenda should be able to win support from Hindus of whatever caste.

The curious thing is, in this election, no party has managed to cause much of a stir. It's not simply that election rules and spending limits are being enforced more strictly than ever before. Somehow this election campaign has not excited a lot of interest. Perhaps it's just too hot.

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