Highly-placed sources say Sonia Gandhi plans to deny tickets to all aspirants who have lost the Lok Sabha elections twice consecutively with a reasonably high margin. The margin is likely to be fixed at 50,000 votes.

Another norm that may leave a lot of her loyalists out in the cold is not to issue party tickets to any new relative of a party leader. Thus, as far as the Congress is concerned, there will be no new politicians in the party.

Party leaders got a hint of these norms when Arjun Singh unilaterally declared last month he would not contest Lok Sabha elections. His announcement shocked partymen, as he was the one who claimed the Congress would win 300 Lok Sabha seats on its own.

It now transpires that being close to 10, Janpath he got wind of these norms and withdrew from the electoral fray. In any case, he need not worryas regards securing his relatives' future: His son is already a minister in the Digvijay Singh Government.

It is a different matter altogether that Singh's premature withdrawal from the contest has sent the wrong signal, that the party is not confident of winning. A number of other senior leaders including Bhajan Lal in Haryana, Mohsina Kidwai in Uttar Pradesh (UP), Vijay Bhaskar Reddy in Andhra Pradesh (AP) and others are not keen on contesting either.

Lal and Reddy have reason to stay away: They are keen on contesting the Assembly elections and becoming Chief Ministers in their respective states. Strangely, the majority of Congress Working Committee members have stayed out of the race, and except for five of them, all of them will campaign.

At least three Pradesh Congress Committee chiefs, Y S Rajshekhar Reddy (AP), Salman Khursheed (UP) and Captain Amarinder Singh (Punjab), have cause to worry if Gandhi implements the `no new relative' norm. Khursheed is keen that his wife Luis Fernandes keep theFarrukhabad seat for him and Captain Singh wants his his family to retain Patiala. Reddy thinks so too, as regards his constituency.

However, once the rules are relaxed for favourite PCC chiefs, there are many in the All India Congress Committee who will try and convince Gandhi to accommodate their relatives.