Political observers in the State who had written the NCP off as a `western Maharashtra party' due to Sharad Pawar's hold there have been forced to revise their estimates as far as Vidarbha is concerned.

Vidarbha has provided the first three Lok Sabha members of the dissolved Parliament -- Sudhakarrao Naik (Washim), Datta Meghe (Wardha) and Prafulla Patel (Bhandara) -- to back the breakaway Congress, as also several legislators and former members of the Legislative Assembly who have considerable clout in the region.

All these can give a tough time to both the Congress and the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance and thereby influence the outcome of both the Lok Sabha and the State Assembly elections due next month.

As of now, with electioneering yet to take off, there are only three Lok Sabha seats the Congress can bank on --Chandrapur, Chimur and Nagpur. Even in Nagpur and Chimur, the Congress cannot be sure of victory as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) presence there is strong.

"We may not be in a position to win these seats outright, but we certainly can influence the outcome", says Prafulla Patel, a close confidante of Pawar and a member of the dissolved Lok Sabha.