For years, India's ruling party defined itself with its fervent Hinduism — weaving religion and politics together as it fought for such things as a ban on slaughtering cows, an animal sacred to Hindus.
These days, the Bharatiya Janata Party sells itself on more earthly issues.
"Power, roads and water," was the BJP rallying cry in elections in the state of Madhya Pradesh last fall. That would be nothing unusual, except that the party's candidate was a celibate, robe-wearing Hindu priestess known for her fiery religious oratory.
Now the BJP is using the same strategy in the national elections that began last Tuesday and will run in phases through May 10. Portraying itself as a mainstream political player in a political area where religion once held center-stage, the BJP has focused on India's booming economy and its quest for development.
The result is an often-contradictory and sometimes-surreal political discourse, where men like Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani — one of the party's most ardent supporters of "Hindutva," or Hindu nationalism — insists the BJP is the "only true secular force" in Indian politics.
But the Hindu agenda remains deeply embedded in BJP politics. And if party leaders speak less about Hinduism these days, other groups are doing it for them.
Meanwhile, increased prominence of party leaders like Uma Bharti, the ascetic priestess-politician, make the party's Hindu connections clear — even while Bharti insists her religion is a private matter.
"They're speaking in two different voices," said D.N. Jha, a history professor at the University of Delhi. "They're trying to create the impression, off and on, that Hindutva is not important."
In earlier years, development barely registered on the party's radar. The BJP launched itself to prominence mainly on one issue — building a Hindu temple to the god Ram on the wreckage of a mosque torn down by Hindu militants in 1992. The destruction of the Babri Mosque set off scores of riots that left thousands dead.
The party had to largely abandon the temple campaign to attract coalition partners, and while it still advocates the temple's construction, it does so in much more conciliatory terms.
It also insists that temple politics aren't part of its campaign.
"Ram Temple or Hindutva are not election issues for us," Vajpayee told the Times of India in a recent interview. "We are pursuing only one agenda: that of making India stronger, more prosperous and integrated to give full play to our civilizational genius."
But that's not to say Hindu concerns aren't being raised. While leaders like Vajpayee speak in moderate terms to the English-language press, the situation is often far different in the Indian heartland and on its streets.
In recent weeks, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or National Volunteers Association, has been campaigning on behalf of BJP candidates, officials say.
The country's largest militant Hindu movement, the RSS — the parent organization of the BJP — was deeply influenced by 1930s German fascism and has been widely accused of stoking religious hatred with its aggressively anti-Muslim views.
The RSS has launched what it calls a "parallel campaign," mobilizing support and votes for BJP candidates, RSS spokesman Ram Madhav said.
Among the issues they'll be raising: building the Ram temple.
To many observers, the BJP's focus on development is simply a political move to take advantage of a surging Indian economy and plentiful monsoon rains.
For nearly a year, it's been trumpeting India's good times, celebrating everything from increased software jobs to enormous foreign exchange reserves. It launched a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign late last year that celebrated this "Shining India" in slick newspaper and television advertisements.
So what does the BJP really want — and what would happen if it had enough seats in Parliament to hold power without the constraints of coalition politics?
"That's the billion-dollar question, no doubt about it," said Krishna Sankaran, a South Asia specialist at the University of Hawaii.
The party was badly tainted by anti-Muslim rioting in 2002 in the western state of Gujarat, rioting that many charge was directed by state BJP officials and which national party officials only halfheartedly condemned.
But the BJP has also presided over immense changes in India since coming to power in 1998. The economy has surged in recent years — it's growing now at 8 percent — and the country has become a major hub for high-tech work.
It's a situation, some observers say, that could lead more moderate party officials to wonder if the religious agenda is worth it.
Or as Sankaran put it: "Communal riots and state-led pogroms against minorities are seriously bad for the economy."