For decades, India's congress party has projected itself as a gigantic tent that spanned the country's many divisions: it enjoyed support from Hindus and Muslims, high castes and low castes, rich and poor. National parliamentary elections in May, however, threw Congress out of power and confirmed that its tent is now in tatters. The country's lower castes in particular are looking for--and managing to find--leadership elsewhere in newly assertive, caste-based parties.

This recasting of electoral equations has been especially dramatic in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, with more than 150 million people. U.P., as it is familiarly known, was once a Congress bastion, and has produced most of the country's Prime Ministers. In U.P. state assembly elections that begin this week, Congress is bowing to the inevitable. Rather than risk being smashed by going it alone, the party is contesting the election as the junior partner in an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party, whose leader, Kanshi Ram, is a charismatic figure for the state's Dalits, a group once considered untouchable.

The election promises to be polarized by caste loyalties even more than usual for U.P., a state riven by religious and class divisions that frequently boil over into deadly rioting. The B.S.P.-Congress alliance is in a triangular contest with two other parties: the Samajwadi Party, which draws strong support from those placed just above the Dalits in the caste hierarchy, and the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which is popular with Hindu upper-caste voters. If the lower-caste vote is split evenly, the b.j.p. may romp to power. The two lower-caste parties seem willing to risk that. With India's national government weaker than ever--Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda's 13-party coalition relies on Congress support for survival--the lower-caste pair hope election success in U.P. leads to more power in New Delhi. Says the B.S.P.'s Kanshi Ram: "I wouldn't be surprised if we have a Dalit Prime Minister by the end of next year."

Staking its claim to political power so boldly is a large reason why the B.S.P. commands strong support among the Dalits in U.P. The state's politics have traditionally been dominated by its upper castes, notably the Brahmans. That changed when the B.S.P. teamed up with the Samajwadi Party to beat the b.j.p. handily in the 1993 state elections. Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav became chief minister, but the two parties soon found that they had nothing in common except a dislike of the upper castes. Their alliance fell apart, and their leaders have been sworn enemies ever since. Kanshi Ram's protege, a lower-caste woman who goes by the single name Mayawati, became the first Dalit chief minister of the state in June 1995. Though her government fell a few months later, the former schoolteacher captured the imagination of her long-oppressed community by bullying and even suspending state officials and policemen who didn't move quickly enough to punish attacks on the Dalits by upper castes.

She also unashamedly funneled the state's development funds to Dalit areas to provide houses, electricity and water. Her brash style and shaky administrative skills have stirred criticism, but not much of it comes from Dalits. Says Ashok Kumar, an agricultural laborer who was one of thousands of Dalits who flocked to Kanshi Ram and Mayawati's recent political meetings: "When she was chief minister, officials who didn't think we even existed suddenly became attentive. We want her back."

Standing squarely in the way of that outcome is some cold political arithmetic. The B.S.P.'s bitter adversary, Samajwadi leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, has equally ardent supporters among the state's lower castes. He also garners votes from the state's large Muslim population. Like the B.S.P., Yadav, who is Defense Minister in Deve Gowda's Cabinet, is seeking to broaden his appeal. He has cobbled together a coalition with a party of rich farmers. The result of this maneuvering: the lower-caste vote splits between the two parties, allowing the b.j.p., which has solid support from the Brahmans and other high castes, to become the single largest party in the state.

That's the finding of two recent opinion polls, but Kanshi Ram remains undaunted. He believes he can win with the help of his new allies in the Congress. "My primary goal is social transformation and economic emancipation," says Kanshi Ram, "but I realize that without political clout, no one will listen to me."

Many Indians have trouble figuring out whom to listen to, given the shifting alignments of the parties. Not surprisingly, one of the U.P. surveys found that half of those polled would prefer to forgo elections altogether and be ruled by a governor appointed from New Delhi. It is a troubling reminder that India's democracy, for all its new voices, is beginning to look a little frayed in the eyes of its citizens.

--Reported by Maseeh Rahman/Lucknow