Locks of well-oiled hair fall on his forehead from under a squeaky white skullcap. He has washed and ironed his khadi khurta with care.

His face has an extra sheen; he has shaved for the first time. His smile, though tainted by beetle-stained teeth, is naughty.

He is Salem Khan. All of 15.

Like Bachchan and Yadav, he is out campaigning for his party.

Salem starts his day at 8am from the Rasalaganj locality of central Aligarh. He traverses the dusty, bumpy roads of this town, deftly dodging speeding vehicles and crawling cycle-rickshaws being pulled by weary men, in his tricycle cart.

He does not use his feet to pedal.

He cannot.

Polio ensured that Salem would not walk, ever, when he was six. Next came his father's death. Fate followed that blow up with many more, till now.

"My cycle cart is my home," he says. "I sleep in it. Wherever I go, I go with it."

It is his shop as well. He sells cigarettes and beedis from it.

"In the daytime I move from one college to another in the [Aligarh Muslim] University," he says. "I know the break timings in every college. Lots of students smoke, so it is good business... But one has to be careful of the guards."

Some 15 days ago, Salem had pedalled into the Congress party office premises, where campaign preparations were on.

Candidates usually employ men with cycle-rickshaws to go around this sleepy town, playing electioneering songs, which usually parody popular Bollywood songs.

"I volunteered to campaign for them," Salem says. "I told them, 'Saja do meri gaadi ko [decorate my vehicle]'."

They did. And Salem was on the roll, a country-made tape-recorder belting out campaign songs from a rusty megaphone tied to his cart, a pile of pamphlets at hand.

"I have stopped selling cigarettes for the time being," he says. "I am busy campaigning for my party."

The party pays him for the job -- Rs 100 a day. But Salem says he is not doing it for the money.

"I make that kind of money selling cigarettes too," he says. "I am campaigning because I want the Congress to win."

And why is that? Salem's reply is straight out of a Congress poster: "Desh banega, apnee sarkar banegee."

Whether that sounds convincing or not, Salem enjoys every bit of his new assignment. As he tells his story, a crowd of schoolchildren gathers around. He produces a tattered copy of a local newspaper for their benefit. The front page has a big picture of him campaigning.

The children are suitably impressed and Salem, basking in his sudden glory, flashes them a smile.

Then he moves off slowly, with his megaphone blaring a spoof on Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's comment that the opposition should not raise the coffin scandal at a time when the country is facing a warlike situation:

Rajneeti chalate hain, aur kehte hain
Parde mein rahne do, parda na utthaao
Vajpayee teri toaba, Advani teri toaba

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Photograph: Basharat Peer