It fell on two scores of political rebels, mainly from the Congress rank and file who entered the state legislature, to play the number game in March 1995 and realise the Sena dream of bringing Maharashtra under saffron rule.

But four-and-half years down the line, the Sena-BJP government is engaged in a face-saving exercise. Of the same rebels from the state's co-operative belt who cleared the way for Bal Thackeray and his men, the majority is now with Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

For more than four years the independents kept the alliance on tenterhooks, aware that the saffron alliance leadership was depending on them to loosen the Congress grip on the cooperatives. But now with the independents deciding to toe a different line, it is clear that the situation for the Sena-BJP alliance in the cooperative belt is back to square one.

Just how important are these independents can be gauged from the fact that in the last Assembly elections a record 25 Congress rebels won from western Maharashtra. Of these 18 were from the Ahmednagar-Kolhapur sugar belt which alone accounts for over 75 Assembly seats. The Congress, which then had Sharad Pawar going all out, secured 37 seats and was followed by the Shiv Sena (9), BJP (6), Janata Dal (3), CPM (1) and PWP (1).

But that was in 1995. As of today, 13 independent MLAs, including Narayan Rane's ministers Dilip Sopal (Barshi, Solapur) and Shivajirao Naik (Shirala, Sangli), and former MKVDC vice-president Ramraje Naik-Nimbalkar (Phaltan, Satara) have deserted the saffron combine to ride the NCP bandwagon.

With these independents behind them, the NCP can now pose a threat to the fortunes of Prithviraj Chavan in Karad and Sandipan Thorat in Pandharpur, two leaders for whom winning elections used to come easy.

In a bid to regain lost ground, the Sena-BJP has has announced its support to two ministers of state Pawar-baiter Harshvardhan Patil in Indapur in Pawar's home constituency of Baramati and Bharmu Subrao Patil who won the Chandgad Assembly seat in Kolhapur. Madhukar Kamble, formerly a rebel from Jat in Sangli, now is backed officially by the BJP.

In his public pronouncements, Chief Minister Rane is careful not to sound too perturbed. He claims the alliance never banked heavily on these independents. Yet he admitted in Pune last week that the NCP would do well in western Maharashtra.

Rane predicted that Pawar would not manage more than 12 Lok Sabha seats, of which 9-10 would be from western Maharashtra. For the Assembly, he gave Pawar less than 50 seats, again the major chunk from western Maharashtra. Political observers say that Pawar at the moment is sitting pretty in western Maharastra and the chances are that more men might desert the Congress to swell the NCP ranks.