With Shankarsinh Vaghela having come into its fold, the Congress is most likely to revive its vote-catching KHAM (Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim) theory, which had been discovered by party stalwart Zinabhai Darji and executed successfully by Madhavsinh Solanki in the 1980 and 1985 general elections in Gujarat.

Solanki, who had played a significant role in the merger process, is reportedly working in tandem with Vaghela, exploring the possibility of reviving the KHAM theory to ``counter the Patel domination in the present dispensation led by Keshubhai Patel in Gujarat''. And, Zinabhai Darji appears all set to lend his helping hand in this exercise.

In this background, Zinabhai's meeting withCongress president Sonia Gandhi in Delhi recently, assumes great political significance.

A senior Congress leader told The Indian Express that during an hour-long meeting, which had taken place immediately after the merger announcement that day, Sonia Gandhi discussed at length the current political scenario in Gujarat and requested him to `rededicate' himself to the party.

He had recently distanced himself from the Congress following differences with certain party leaders.

With the KHAM and OBC (other backward class) communities constituting a whopping chunk of about 77 per cent of the total electorate in Gujarat, the Vaghela-Solanki-Darji combine can reap rich dividends for the Congress in the coming parliamentary elections in the State. It was this KHAM factor which had fetched the party as many as 144 of the total 182 Assembly seats in 1980 and 148 seats in 1985, installing Solanki in the CM's post on both the occasions.

The RJP-Congress merger has apparently sent jitters in the rank andfile of the ruling BJP in Gujarat, the State being considered a citadel of the party. The State Government's decision, on the eve of the merger, to rescind the RJP regime's decision to allot 51,000 sq mtrs of land to Shankarsinh Vaghela's charitable trust for setting up an educational complex in Gandhinagar, is an indicator of the nervousness of the ruling party.

The BJP leadership had earlier dubbed it as a ``major land scandal'', vowing to expose yet more ``misdeeds and scams'' allegedly committed during the Vaghela regime.

As the merger talks began gaining momentum, both in the media and political circles, central BJP leaders, including L K Advani and Sumitra Mahajan, in-charge of Gujarat BJP, stepped up the frequency of their visits to the State, chalking out strategies with state leaders to meet the challenge at the hustings in the wake of the RJP-Congress merger.

With the merger, Vaghela's party is likely to become a fighting force. It would be pertinent to note here that had the RJP-Congressfought jointly the last Assembly elections, they could have won at least 40 to 45 more seats and maybe prevented the BJP from coming to power. Similarly, the RJP spoiled the Congress prospects of capturing at least five more seats in the last Lok Sabha elections by cutting into the latter's traditional vote bank of backward classes and OBCs.