``We will not jump into anything in haste,'' Sonia Gandhi told correspondents this evening. It was a message to the rest of the Opposition that she was not ready to be pushed into a messy arrangement like the BJP.

Significantly, she also distanced herself from the Jayalalitha roller-coaster, saying that she had not had any contact with the AIADMK leader since Subramaniam Swamy's famous tea party.

The perceptible hardening of the Congress approach to the tricky question of government formation comes after a late-night conclave at 10 Janpath yesterday which was attended by Arjun Singh, ML Fotedar, Ahmed Patel, Pranab Mukherjee and Manmohan Singh.

For the past two days, Arjun Singh has been holding frenzied meetings with leaders of the different opposition parties to hammer out an acceptable arrangement.

The Congressstand is quite clear. It does not want to sully its image by heading a rag-tag coalition. It wants to lead a minority government on its own. If, however, a coalition is the only alternative to the Vajpayee Government, then it wants the Third Front to take on that burden.

Congress sources hinted that its emissaries have even told the Third Front that pushed to the wall, the party would be prepared to have the Vajpayee Government carry on until a mid-term poll.

This is clearly a bargaining position adopted by the Congress to counter the conditions the Third Front and Jayalalitha are seeking to impose. There is no consensus in the Third Front on the question of a Congress minority government. Mulayam Singh Yadav is keen to be part of the next government while CPM leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet is opposed to the inclusion of the AIADMK in an alternative setup for fear that this would drive the DMK into the arms of the BJP.

Congress messengers are believed to have told Jayalalitha to sort things out with theThird Front as Sonia is not in a position to promise her anything without the Front's consent. Sources said Subramanian Swamy is flying to Calcutta tonight to meet Jyoti Basu in a last-ditch attempt to bring the Left around to the inclusion of the AIADMK in an alternative government.

In the absence of any clarity on the other side, the BJP is keeping its fingers crossed that it would squeak through the current crisis provided its flock stayed firmly together. It has dangled the carrot of a cabinet expansion before its allies, including Jayalalitha, in the hope that its shaky coalition will stay united.

Significantly, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has still not accepted the resignation of the two AIADMK ministers, indicating that the Government nurtures hopes of a rapprochement with Jayalalitha.

At the same time, BJP leaders are conceding that their optimism may be misplaced in the light of Jayalalitha's increasingly harsh tone. Home Minister LK Advani admitted at a function in NOIDA today that thearithmetic of the ruling coalition in the Lok Sabha was ``tight'' even as he claimed that the Government would not fall.

The situation will remain fluid till Jayalalitha arrives on her political mission on April 12 after which the present confusion may clear.