The TDP's letter to the President urges him to invite another formation only if its numerical strength exceeds that of the BJP. While asserting that they had supported the Vajpayee Government during the confidence vote, the TDP has now refrained from promising it an unstinted support.

Significantly, senior BJP leader L K Advani--and not Vajpayee--will lead the group of allies to the Rashtrapati Bhawan after getting the Budget cleared in the Lok Sabha.

The PMK and the DMK, too, have decided not to make things too easy for Vajpayee. It was by delaying their letters that they kept the Government on tenterhooks till this morning.

Ittook Vajpayee's men 24 hours to secure the letters, but in the end they got everybody to sign on the dotted line: including the TDP and four independent MPs from North-East.

Drafted in North Block, it is essentially one letter which was signed by most of the BJP allies. At the outset, it makes it clear to the President that they were ``pledging their support to Atal Behari Vajpayee and consider him our leader.''

The confidence vote, the President is told, ``which the Government lost by one vote has stunned the nation. We feel that the only viable Government is one led by Vajpayee. We would like you to take this fact into account before you come out with an alternative Government.''

Explaining the delay in procuring the letters--the exercise started yesterday afternoon following Vajpayee's meeting with the allies--a senior Government functionary explained that they were initially bogged down by ``logistical problems.'' DMK's Murasoli Maran, for instance, was not in Delhi. Similarly there were problemslocating PMK's Ram Doss.