In Himachal's sprawling Kangra constituency, which has over 9 lakh voters over half of them women the BJP is harping on the ``outsider'' theme to kill two birds with one stone. Both Congress nominee Sat Mahajan, who is the PCC chief, and party chief Sonia Gandhi fit the description, the party is telling people. The son of the soil is sitting BJP MP Shanta Kumar who belongs to Palampur.But in the scenic hill town of Dharamshala, which is better known as the abode of Tibetan spiritual and temporal leader Dalai Lama, native wisdom has taken the sting out of the rhetoric. A large number of people of Nepalese origin reside in various self-contained settlements here.Most of their sons are in the Army. Says an articulate Chander Kanta Thapa, 56, who lives in the village of Totarani in Upper Dharamshala: ``If a girl is given in marriage from one caste to another, she is considered to be of the other caste. If a Thapa marries a Gurung, she becomes a Gurung. Sonia is the bahu of Rajiv Gandhi, she has come toour house. That makes her a bharatiya not a videshi.'' What's more pertinent for Thapa is the fact that Sonia is a woman. ``If she wins, she will listen to us and also do something for the poor,'' she argues.Adds bespectacled housewife Jamuna Khadka from the urban Nepalese colony of Chilgadi: ``Tomorrow if I marry into a Muslim household, I will be a Muslim. And with Sonia, khaandani asar to khaandani hi hai.''Voters throughout the area mention the lack of development as the main issue citing the better off Shimla and Mandi and a majority of them feel Sonia's Italian origin is a non-issue. Says 28-year-old Pranav, a chemist in Lower Dharamshala: ``Indians go abroad for money and marry foreigners. If Sonia had returned to Italy after Rajiv Gandhi's death, I would have called her a foreigner. But she stayed on.'' Stationery shop proprietor Rohit agrees: ``Like we accept a bahu who comes from another house, we can accept Sonia if she can run the country well and acquaint herself with the issues ofpoverty and unemployment. If an Indian can be the Prime Minister of a foreign country, why can't she?''With this region's strong links with the forces, Sonia's possible candidature as Prime Minister has taken on a new connotation. Comments the owner of a photo goods shop who has relatives in the Army and the BSF. ``If Sonia comes the war might stop. The bodies are still coming. Vajpayee is not trying to stop the war. What will one-year widows do with compensation?''However, the educated segment of the population in the town is agitated about Sonia's foreign origin. Fumes a government engineer: ``Videshi will always be videshi. Sonia did not allow her own son, Rahul, to marry a Mongolian because she thought it would affect her prospects in the elections. Jisko jabardasti rajneeti mein ghaseeta ja raha hai, woh raaj kya karegi? (How can a person who has been dragged into politics against her wishes rule?) She will be just a puppet.'' Agrees the affluent owner of a large tea estate: ``I have decidednot to vote for the Congress because of Sonia's foreign origin.''Despite this debate, ultimately the issues that might come into play are likely to be strictly local in nature. It's a clash of personalities Shanta Kumar is perceived to be a man who gets things done but is remote and inaccessible; Sat Mahajan, on the other hand, is seen to be approachable. What finally weighs more in the mind of the voter remains to be seen.
