For one who is known to be extremely reticent, Sonia Gandhi was candour personified when she hosted a lunch on February 7 for journalists on the Congress beat. Just a week earlier, she had stooped hoping to conquer. On BSP President Mayawati's birthday on January 31, Sonia had driven to Mayawati's residence to offer greetings. She emerged from the two-hour meeting confident of her party forging an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party in the forthcoming general elections. Everything seemed to have been sewn up over a quiet lunch that day. But the unpredictable Mayawati dampened Sonia's exuberance just a day later when she stated that her party was not entering into any alliance with the Congress. "The Government is putting pressure on some political parties not to align with us," Sonia told the journalists assembled at her 10 Janpath residence.

THE ENEMY'S ENEMY IS A FRIEND: Sonia with other opposition leaders

WILL THEY? WON'T THEY?

1 SAMAJWADI PARTY: Amar Singh attended an opposition meeting convened by Sonia but Mulayam wants to go it alone as in 1999 when he won 27 seats. 2 NCP: Sharad Pawar's heart is not in the alliance but his hands are forced by the party cadre. Said to be looking for a way out of the alliance as he did in Gujarat. 3 RASHTRIYA JANATA DAL: Laloo is keen to carry the Congress along but is a miser while giving out seats. Ready to offer just six seats, but Congress wants more. 4 DMK: Alliance in place after 24 years but it is an uneasy relationship. T. Balu deals with Sonia on behalf of party chief M. Karunanidhi who has offered five seats.

While her openness was refreshing, few expected Sonia to articulate her disappointment so early in her efforts to tie up with the key power player in Uttar Pradesh, which also happens to be the only party so far to engage in a dialogue with the Congress.

With Mayawati making it clear that the BSP would rather fight alone there is not much hope for the Congress to carve out a grand alliance, without which its hopes of taking on the BJP-led NDA is likely to be a non-starter. Sources in the BSP say the negotiations floundered over the Congress' demand for 30 of the 80 seats at stake in Uttar Pradesh. The claim, they say, is outlandish. "At best, they should hope to contest five seats," says Sudhir Goel, Uttar Pradesh MLC. The Congress leaders were quick to counter this, saying Mayawati's meeting with Sonia was a device by the latter to leverage itself against the BJP. Political circles, however, don't rule out yet another round of meeting between the two women. "The BSP will play footsie with the Congress till it gets the BJP to do its bidding. It is politics of blackmail. We are just helpless onlookers," says a Congress Working Committee member.

As far as electoral alliances are concerned, it is the same story for the Congress in most states. Take Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu or Maharashtra. In some it shares power with regional allies while in others it sits in the opposition. Yet most parties have not been able to outgrow the politics of anti-Congressism that they have practised for decades. And though the Congress has for the first time in nearly five decades got off its high horse to talk of alliances, it finds there are few takers. "We are trying to persuade parties to join us. Earlier we were accused of not accommodating political groups. But now we are running from one party to the other," says AICC General Secretary K. Vayalar Ravi.

JOIN HANDS: Sans allies, Congress will be totally routed in most states

Such humility would have been unthinkable among the Congress leaders a few years ago. But with the party no longer calling the shots, even small regional groups are browbeating the Congress leadership. In its eagerness to clinch a deal with the Telengana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS) in Andhra Pradesh, the Congress invited its leader K. Chandrashekhar Rao to Delhi where senior leaders like Pranab Mukherjee held discussions with him. The Congressmen from Telengana were livid at the way the regional satrap was serenaded at the capital but their protests were brushed aside.

The hype around the meeting saw the TRS demand 53 out of 107 assembly seats and eight of the 16 Lok Sabha seats in the Telengana region. The Congress found this unreasonable as the TRS' influence was limited to the north Telengana districts- Nizamabad, Karimnagar, Warangal, Medak and Adilabad. Besides, it also wanted the Congress to support its demand for the creation of a separate Telengana state. In typical Congress style it tried obfuscation, saying it would propose the setting up of a State Reorganisation Commission. This was hardly acceptable to the TRS and the talks broke off. Now the Congress is left with a broad understanding with the CPI and the CPI(M). But without the TRS, even the eternal optimists in the party do not see the Congress picking up more than eight seats from the 42 at stake in Andhra Pradesh.

ON THE ROCKS

BSP: Mayawati has been ruthless with the Congress. It wants 30 seats, she is ready to give only five. Talks fail.

TRS: The Congress backed out as the TRS chief K.C. Rao sought separate statehood for Telengana.

JMM: Heads the opposition party in Jharkhand. Shibu Soren finds Congress' demand for eight seats unreasonable.

The tale gets repeated as the intense wooing by the Congress in other states is met with buying-time tactics at best and a cold shoulder at worst. In Maharashtra, Congress leaders say its chances of clinching a deal with Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party would be an action replay of the seat negotiations it had with the NCP before assembly elections in Goa and Gujarat. "Pawar will make impossible demands just to cop out," says an AICC functionary. In Jharkhand, the Congress is eager to woo JMM's Shibu Soren who is unwilling to buckle to its demand of eight of the 14 seats in the state.

Even Mulayam Singh Yadav who rules in Uttar Pradesh with the support of the Congress had retorted with an indelicate snub when Sonia sent feelers to him regarding a possible alliance for the Lok Sabha polls.

The Congress' only success has been in Tamil Nadu where it allied with the DMK after 24 years. But the details of seat-sharing indicate the Congress will once again play second fiddle: it has been given only five seats out of 40. Up north in Bihar RJD chief Laloo Prasad Yadav is keen to carry the Congress along but as usual is miserly when it comes to seat distribution. He is ready to give just six of the 40 seats in the state. And no more.

India's Grand Old Party has just learnt that there is no getting away from coalition politics. It will be a while, though, before it masters the art.