Though there is a rethink in the Left parties, they will be left with little option but to support the Congress to keep the BJP at bay, when it comes to the crunch. Sensing an improvement in the Congress position, the Left parties, which want to do business only with a weak Congress, are even exploring the possibility of reviving the Third Force, which could be supported by the Congress.

The willingness expressed by Jyoti Basu to take over the top job, the dash made by Harkishen Singh Surjeet to Chennai to confabulate with Jayalalitha, the readiness expressed by Prakash Karat to consider forging a third ``alternative'' are all straws in the wind. But there is no way the Congress will repeat 1996.

Sonia's leadership of the party will also remain unassailable if the Congress manages to notch up only 155-160 seats, and these include10-15 in Uttar Pradesh, the home state of the Nehru-Gandhi family which yielded zilch for the party last time. She can then comfortably sit in the opposition.

However, her comfort level will drop sharply if the party manages to touch the 175-180 mark, and the secular parties between them garner 100 seats and are in a position to form a government along with the Congress.

This is the moment that many senior leaders in the Congress, and in the rest of the secular `parivar', are waiting for. Sharad Pawar and Mulayam Singh have already made it clear that they would be willing to support a Congress minus Sonia. Senior Congress leaders hope that Sonia would give in to pressure because she would be accused of facilitating a BJP government if she baulked at the idea.

They discuss the possibility of Manmohan Singh taking over. Some have mooted the idea that Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh could be considered. After all, he has handled his state well and contained his opponents effectively.

Theirony of it all is that the push being given by Sonia in UP -- the otherwise tightfist of the Congress has opened and money is being released liberally, and party veterans like Prabodh Rawal and Nawal Kishore Sharma have been despatched to oversee the campaign -- could become the cause of her bad moments.

But the wishful thinkers have another thing coming if they think Sonia Gandhi may hand over the leadership of the Congress Parliamentary Party to someone else. It might have been different had she declared after the November 1998 assembly elections that she was not interested in prime ministership but wanted only to rebuild the Congress. India loves renunciation and it might have swung to her in a big way and perhaps she would have been the power behind the throne for a good while, no matter who sat on the `gaddi'. But all that is now history. Sonia Gandhi is in power politics and there is little reason why she should encourage a rival power centre and undercut her own position in the party.

It is nowten years since a non-Nehru was prime minister. The first non-Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, died after a couple pofp years in power. Then there was Narasimha Rao who ruled for all of fivepp years. Another non-Nehru who can manage things for a whole term would make Congress prime ministers from outside the family that much more acceptable. Someone like Manmohan Singh may get support which cuts across party lines, like Narasimha Rao did in the first years of his rule. Singh may be considered rootless, but he is pragmatic. It was not R.K. Dhawan, Janardhan Reddy, Narayan Dutt Tewari or Arjun Singh who were sent to negotiate with Jayalalitha. It was Manmohan Singh and A.K. Antony.

It is only commonsensical that if Sonia Gandhi cannot head the government she will prefer to sit in the opposition, and take the high moral ground. New Ahluwalias and Ratnakar Pandeys would emerge to counter those who argue that the BJP should be prevented at all costs from forming a government. They would make a case for sitting in theopposition and rebuilding the party to enable it to give the country single party rule, allowing the contradictions to surface in the BJP-led coalition in the meantime. They would shout that it was Sonia, and nobody else, who improved the party's tally in 1999. And that the party would on no account change its leader at the instance of those who did not add up to much. And so on.

A 175-figure would also ward off pressures from state satraps, and make it difficult for those with prime ministerial ambitions to break the party.Even a 125-tally for the Congress today would make a split in the party virtually impossible, though it could hasten the entry of Priyanka into active politics. Congressmen have seen the response she has evoked.

Whatever be the electoral outcome, it would be difficult to dislodge Sonia Gandhi from the leadership of the Congress -- unless she loses in both Amethi and Bellary, which is unlikely. A defeat in Bellary could however chasten her.