Several spats, opinions and silences later, it is clear that the three days achieved one thing without doubt: Sonia Gandhi is in firm charge and any attempt to undo her from the party president's post will be full of hurdles.

The biggest loser appeared to be Maratha strongman and perennial contender for the number one slot in the party: Sharad Pawar. It was a sorry spectacle to see the man who led the party to its biggest chunk of MPs in the current Lok Sabha, from Maharashtra, having to stay on the sidelines away from anything of importance and limiting himself to a debate with foregone conclusions, the one on foreign policy.

Pawar spent his spare time holding mini conclaves with his supporters like Jitendra Prasada, Tariq Anwar, RK Dhawan and the rest, inRock End Manor, one of the better hotels in this hill resort. Another surprising loss of stature was that of Manmohan Singh.

Singh, who till recently was considered a favourite of Sonia Gandhi, was at the receiving end of several vitriolic attacks on his liberalisation policy which was in place for five years when the Narasimha Rao government was in place.

Indeed, Singh's policies were blasted in an open rejoinder to his policies which was circulated by Vyalar Ravi, a 10, Janpath, loyalist and Rajesh Pilot. Though the pamphlet had the signatures of both leaders, Pilot later tried hard to distance himself from it. Apparently, he didn't want to hurt Singh too much having done what was expected of him by Sonia. That Ravi chose to hit out at Singh's policies in such a fashion was being seen as an indirect assault on Singh from Sonia's side.

Nothing was said on Ravi's stance, a clear indication that it had the sanction of the powers that be in the party. If this was the most puzzling event of thebrainstorming camp, there were the more obvious losers like PV Narsimha Rao, Sitaram Kesri, Arjun Singh and Digvijay Singh. Rao was treated coldly from the beginning, with the Sonia camp leaving ample space for negative speculation on whether the former premier would even figure among the top 250 ``brains'' in the party.

True to form, Rao took it in his stride and quietly made his entry on the second afternoon. That his presence was hardly noticed was just adding insult to injury. If the camp was meant to be truly brainstorming, Rao's brain is still the most sought after in the party. If anyone could shed light on a host of issues in the party, it was Rao given his five-year reign in control as party president and Prime Minister, the only non-Nehru family leader to have completed a full term as head of the government in India so far.

Kesri was again true to reputation. He first sulked, then issued a statement saying the party was headed for doom and had lost its fighting spirit and finally said he was notwell and couldn't attend the camp. In the event, his followers were left watching as the Sonia group took total and formal control of the 113-year-old organisation. It remains to be seen whether the shrewd bania still has enough stamina in him to slug it out.

Arjun Singh failed to maintain his reputation on two counts: first having to eat crow and totally delete a crucial portion from the political background paper which suggested that Muslims were not rallying behind the Congress as they should. It was a bold statement to say in the first place and Arjun Singh should logically have been allowed to explain what that portion meant. Instead, he was shouted down by Muslim delegates and even people like Ahmed Patel took up cudgels against Singh. The result: Singh virtually apologised and deleted the whole thing from his final report on the political group's discussions.

He also had an avoidable quarrel with Digvijay Singh when Sonia called leaders of Madhya Pradesh for a meeting on the poll prospectsof the party in the State. Apparently, Arjun Singh and Madhavrao Scindia spent time trying to show that Digvijay is not the person to head the party in a crucial election. Reports suggested the duo even wanted some transfers of their loyal officers in the State to better places before the election, which Digvijay is said to have kept pending. In this spat, Digvijay too lost sheen with only Kamal Nath coming vigorously to his rescue.

That brings us to the winners in the Pachmarhi camp. Clearly, Sonia headed the group of winners. All noises against her in the run-up to the camp were a distant memory as she shrewdly took everything in her hands. From now on, her word is undisputed command in the Congress, and in the current atmosphere of instability this would affect potential allies of the party too.

Also, her pro-Left stance is the clearest such indication of policy in the Congress after Indira Gandhi. Rajiv was all for modernisation and had little time for the Left. Rao was actually soft on the Right andKesri, through he reverted to aggressive secularism in the Congress, was always critical of the Left.

The pro-Left message from Pachmarhi should logically have an echo in the party congresses of the CPI and the CPM over the next few weeks.

PA Sangma was another victor. Coming from the politically insignificant north-east, he has still managed a spectacular rise in the Congress, from chief minister of Meghalaya to Union deputy minister to minister of state to cabinet minister in three ministries, Coal, Labour and Information & Broadcasting. Then he became Lok Sabha Speaker and is now a CWC member. His plugging for population control eventually forced the party to implement the two-child norm for its members from January 1, 2000.

Natwar Singh retained his clout with 10, Janpath. Not only is he the man who vets whatever Sonia says in public, he also has two working groups at his disposal in the party on relations with India's neighbours and the country's international relations following Pokharan-II. Hisname is also doing the rounds as potential candidate for chief ministership in Rajasthan. Others like Vyalar Ravi, by virtue of his selection as the hit man on Manmohan, and Kotla Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy, after getting clearance to prosecute people on grounds of indiscipline without involving the general secretaries, also go home with their stock up.