By Fergus Nicoll BBC correspondent in Trivandrum, Kerala

Join the BBC's Fergus Nicoll on the campaign trail in India as he works his way from the deep south up to the capital Delhi, giving regular updates to News Online.

There aren't many cities in India where the hammer and sickle emblem is quite so in-your-face as here in Trivandrum.

Outside the Communist Party headquarters in Trivandrum, it's gold-painted and festooned in blood-red streamers.

It's unmissable as you enter the Connemarra Market, where the fishwives haggle shrilly under the portraits of party boss PK Vasudeva Nayar.

This is no embarrassing relic of the past.

The Communists and trades unionists are a powerful force in Kerala politics and, with just days to go before the vote, they and their allies in the Left Democratic Front want power back.

Not that Congress and their partners in the United Democratic Front will let it go easily.

The Communist Party is a powerful force in Kerala

Their rallies are every bit as enthusiastically staged, their campaign music as head-splittingly loud.

And there are at least as many posters of the cheerful jowled face of VS Shiva Kumar - hoping to get back into the Lok Sabha (parliament).

But hey, what about the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that dominates the governing national coalition?

Well, they're the also-rans in Kerala - the perpetual bridesmaids.

Kerala's at least 50% Hindu, some will tell you, but not that kind of Hindu, referring to the BJP's Hindu nationalism that has put off so many voters from India's minorities..

But times may be a-changing.

Admirers

Bold moves on Pakistan have won lots of admirers down here - and on a pragmatic note there's always the argument that a ruling party MP or two might get Kerala a bit more, well, noticed in Delhi.

Of course, that argument assumes that we know who's going to be the governing party and that would be a mite premature.

Still, this is a proud little place - little as in one per cent of India's landmass.

We were the first state in the world to elect a Communist government democratically, back in 1957 don't you know, many will tell you - and the first to kick the (expletive deleted) out.