This is the upshot of the recent developments -- the Congress suggestion to send the Insurance Regulatory Authority Bill to Parliament's Standing Committee, which came as a face saver for the PM; the party's unprecedented decision to issue a whip to its members on the Patents Amendment Bill, a government legislation, and that too at the introduction stage.

And finally, the Congress gave the Government, in the words of its own MPs, "an honourable retreat instead of a disgraceful one" on the election of the Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha. Jayalalitha, they said, had wanted to embarrass the government when she demanded that the post be given to the major opposition party. PM Sayeed's nomination was sponsored both by the Prime Minister and Sharad Pawar.

The Congress took the cue from the BJP on theUS attack on Iraq, and "deplored" it, while other opposition leaders made impassioned speeches in the Rajya Sabha calling for the "condemnation" of the military aggression.

The Congress brass has calculated that by rescuing Vajpayee, it will help deepen the dissensions within the BJP and between the saffron party and the RSS. Widening the chasm between Vajpayee and the RSS goes to weaken both in the long run. The BJP's electoral machinery will suffer a severe setback without RSS cadres to campaign for it, and the RSS is reduced to a cultural organisation without the benefit of a political party.

Such a strategy also gives the Congress greater maneuverability to determine a timetable for a mid term election that it finds suitable. Sonia Gandhi has been eliciting the views of senior party leaders on whether the party should try for polls in March and April. Many in the party feel the country's mood at the moment is against khichdi governments and for one party rule. This could however dissipate sixmonths down the line.

Inside the BJP also there is a view that it may be better for the party to cut its losses and go for early polls, which may enable it to retain some of its base. "If things go on as they are, it may be a repeat of 1984 -- from 84 MPs down to 2," remarked a party MP.

While the Congress leadership may have crafted a go-soft-on-Vajpayee strategy, which enables the PM to take on the RSS and his hardliners, Congress MPs did not take kindly to it at the Thursday morning meeting senior leaders had with Sonia Gandhi in Parliament house and many questioned why Pranab Mukherji had to bend over backwards to help the government. Mukherji had taken the unprecedented step yesterday of issuing a whip to partymen in the Rajya Sabha on the Patents Amendment Bill.

Normally the opposition party does not issue a whip to support a government legislation, even if it has to back a bill, and much less at the introduction stage. By this unusual step, the Congress had saved the government enormousembarrassment yet once again in the last three days. Mukherji even raised a point of order in the House in favour of the Bill, "as if he was the government spokesman".

The Government was not unsure of its own MPs and had decided to refer the Patents Bill to the Standing Committee. On Wednesday morning the BJP Rajya Sabha MPs had had a stormy meeting with Industry Minister Sikander Bakht who was to pilot the Bill. A rattled Bakht had threatened to resign on the issue. Finally, he compromise was to send the bill to Parliament's Standing Committee. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Madanalal Khurana had formally informed the Press about this. But soon thereafter, the Government decided to go ahead and introduce the bill and get it passed once the Congress decided to issue a whip.

Sikander Bakht had sought the Congress' help on Tuesday evening and urged both Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukherji who he confabulated with to issue a whip. The Prime Minister followed it up by meeting Singh.

Congress MPs felt thateven if the party had decided to support the Bill, which according to Mukherji was more or less what the Congress government had brought in 1995, there was no need to create an impression that it was trying to save the BJP government. This had given people like Mulayam Singh Yadav a handle to attack the Congress and left the opposition space to parties of the Third Force.

So strong was the criticism of Mukherji, that he was stung to reply that he had cleared the issuance of a whip with Sonia Gandhi. Realising that there had been an overkill, Gandhi instructed party spokesman Ajit Jogi to correct the impression of the party hobnobbing with the BJP. The Congress has now fixed a meeting on Monday to discuss the Patents Bill in detail.

The Congress stand on the Patents Bill followed the support the party gave the government on the Insurance Regulatory Authority Bill. A senior BJP Minister thanked Congress leaders for their help on the Bill and said that with the pressure from Nagpur after the RSS'chintan baithak

, the Government was thinking of sending the bill to a parliamentary committee.But this would have been a setback for the Prime Minister who had insisted that the Bill would be introduced in its original form, despite the RSS' reservations. The Congress proposal to refer the bill to a standing committee provided the government with a fig leaf.