Calls to her house by anxious CPI leaders through Saturday morning yielded no more than a standard ``she is ill and is in hospital''. But a check of all government hospitals nearby, showed nobody by that name had been admitted. The anxiety was all the more acute because with the fate of the Vajpayee government hanging in the balance, the capital's political circles were abuzz with rumours of monetary and other considerations coming into play in the run-up to the vote of confidence.

The counting of votes in parliament revealed votes of two MPs were missing: Those of A.C. Muthiah, the AIADMK MP who is believed to have put the ballot paper into his shirt-pocket instead of the ballot box, and Kim Gangte, not present in the House at all.

A baffled CPI reacted withcaution.

``She was a new MP and had become a CPI member just prior to the elections'', were the guarded replies of CPI leaders as curiosity about the missing MP grew.

By the next morning the mystery about Gangte's ``disappearance'' had been solved. Gangte, an asthma patient, was located in the ICU of the Moolchand hospital. A former schoolteacher and human rights' activist, 36-year-old Gangte belongs to the Kuki tribe. In Imphal, she is known for her efforts to broker a peace between the warring tribes of Manipur. As she struggles for each breath, alternating between spells of a nebuliser mask and oxygen tubes, there is little doubt that this was no deliberate avoidance of the crucial vote. ``This is the fourth time I've had a brush with death. But never were my asthma attacks so bad as this time,'' she gasps, before collapsing from a bout of coughing and wheezing. ``Its the pollution in Delhi,'' adds her younger sister, who has been with Gangte in the hospital.

``She is a chronic asthma patient,''reveals A.B. Bardhan, General Secretary, CPI, explaining Gangte's absence on the day of the crucial vote.