The sugar barons, including some who make the Nationalist Congress Party's Assembly contingent of 58, believe that an end to the crisis in the State will be in sight once Atal Behari Vajpayee takes charge at the Centre on Wednesday.

"As of today, we (NCP) are only talking to Congress leaders. At least that is the official position," an NCP MLA told this reporter. "I too am waiting like you. What else can one do? We have decided not to speak to the press," he said, but went on to add that the Congress and the NCP were likely to buy time till Wednesday.

But there was no denying the anxiety among a section of Pawar-supporters in western Maharashtra over reports that the NCP boss is planning to even shake hands with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

An NCP man from Kolhapur indicated that any deal with the NDA would not be welcome."Disagreement within is possible and it could snowball into a problem for the party. It will be rather difficult to be with the saffron alliance," he said.

This was despite Pawar's claim on Monday that he saw "something good emerging out of the talks with Congress on the formation of a new government in the State".

Pawar, who has been snubbed elsewhere in the State, has seven Lok Sabha MPs (including himself) and 35 (out of NCP's 58) Assembly members. The NCP swept the polls in Satara where all its candidates won, except in Karad south assembly seat. It won five assembly seats each in Kolhapur and Sangli districts and seven in Pune. The Republican Party of India (Athawale faction), an NCP ally, won the Pandharpur Lok Sabha seat.

Now that he is being called a adich zilhyancha raja (a ruler of two-and-half districts in the State), NCP-supporters and some Pawar sympathisers believe that if he decides to join hands with the NDA, it will be suicidal. "It will be a blunder like the one he made when hejoined Rajiv Gandhi's Congress in 1986," they said. The only good option, an NCP MLA conceded, was to sit in the Opposition.