Deori is expected to announce her decision in a couple of days and it could change the nature of the problem facing Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Till now, only men have parted ways after the rival NCP was floated by Sharad Pawar, P A Sangma and Tariq Anwar. And Sonia has always taken care to show that she is actively pro-women.

Sonia is in fact considering reserving as many as 25 per cent party tickets to women in the coming elections and this is why Deori's quitting may harm Sonia in a different way. Deori is a senior Congress leader from the north-east and was made Rajya Sabha MP by Indira Gandhi.

She was later made Arunachal PCC chief by Rajiv Gandhi and now apparently feels ``sidelined and distanced'' by Sonia. Her third major stint came as aCWC member under P V Narasimha Rao. She was also awarded the Padma Shri, a rare thing for a north-east woman. She represents both the tribals and women in the north-east making it a double blow for Sonia.

Deori's planned parting of ways comes in the wake of a massive unrest in Congress cadres across the country though on the surface, things are placid. More than 100 workers practically laid siege to Deori's residence here over the last two days forcing her to quit. The basic anger was that she was not being given due importance by Sonia despite her background and that the time was ripe to join Sangma.

Rattled by the show of public anger, Deori first fled to a friend's house here and later left Delhi for Itanagar, capital of Arunachal Pradesh, under sheer pressure from the workers. It is thus a case of workers forcing a leader to take a line and not the other way.

Sangma has already poached enough Congress MLAs from Meghalaya and the next government will be led by him and not the Congress. FollowingDeori's anticipated quitting, the Congress is in danger of losing ground in other states as well in the north-east.

Already the Congress is being referred to as the Sonia Congress, on par with the Pawar Congress. And with the north-east accounting for 25 MPs, it is a crucial part of the Congress gameplan. Sangma is only too aware of this.