Dealing yet another blow to Hillary Clinton's struggling campaign, Democratic party leaders have agreed to seat the delegates from the renegade states of Florida [Images] and Michigan with halved voting rights, bringing her rival Barack

Obama within a striking distance of the Democratic presidential nomination.

    
The 30-member Rules Committee's move, brought a threat from the Clinton camp to take the fight right to the Democratic convention in Denver in August which is to select the presidential nominee, amid the possibility of sharp divisions in the two states which could harm the party's chances in the November elections.

    
The party committee endorsed in an open meeting on Saturday, the compromise which was struck behind closed doors, dealing a major blow to chances of 60-year-old Clinton.

    
Florida and Michigan, with 368 pledged and super delegates in total, were discounted because they held their

primaries in January, in contravention of the party's rules. Clinton had won both states -- 73 out of the 128 pledged delegates in Michigan and 105 out of 180 in Florida -- and wanted all the delegates from there to be seated.

    
But the delegates from Michigan and Florida will now only have half a vote each, so Clinton's gains are limited to half as well. As of now, Obama has 1984 delegates including 1661 pledged or elected and 323 so-called super delegates or elected party officials. Clinton is trailing with 1782 including 1499 pledged and 283 super delegates.

    
With three nominating contests yet to take place, 47-year-old Obama has come very close to the magic figure of 2026 delegates require to claim the nomination.

The compromise will give Clinton 24 more delegates as compared with Obama from the disputed states but that would not help her much in the overall count. According to New York Times tally, Obama leads Clinton by over 175 delegates as the party goes into final three primaries.

    
Describing the decision as hijacking of the people's choice, Clinton's Chief advisor, Harold Ickes said it was hijacking as the committee has assigned delegates to Obama which he had never won.

The halved voting rights of Florida and Michigan delegates could undercut Clinton's votes. Besides, the super delegates are under pressure to declare their preference by the middle of June so that the party could fight McCain effectively.

   
Obama's advisers said that he is very near to declaring the victory and would have the support of bosses of the party but how the Obama-Clinton fight, which will continue despite the declaration, harms the party is something being assessed by the analysts.

With President George W Bush's [Images] rating running low, the Democratic party, analysts say, should not have any difficulty in winning the election but the Obama-Clinton fight is threatening to do harm to both the canidates and divide the party along racial lines.

    
With cameras on and hundreds of spectators belonging to both sides in the room during the committee meeting, it turned into a sort of circus and several committee members appeared surprised at the animosity and boos and jeers from the crowd. Repeated attempts by the chair to bring order failed most of the time. Some of the Clinton supporters said the committee members had enacted a drama rather than genuine hearing as they had already decided the course they would take.

   
The final resolution giving seats to all Florida delegates but with half the vote was adopted by the 30-member

committee. Earlier, it had rejected a resolution giving full voting rights to the delegates. When the final resolution was taken up some members changed sides which, they explained, was for the sake of the unity in the party.On Michigan, the committee reached the same decision to seat all delegates but give them half the vote, by 19 to 8.

The decision was more difficult in case of Michigan as Obama had withdrawn from the ballot. Clinton had received 55 per cent votes in Michigan and 40 per cent had cast "uncommitted" ballots. Obama's supporters had argued that the uncommitted would have voted for Obama but Clinton's side argued that they could have cast for anyone in the field at that time who was not on the ballot. Over next few weeks, all other contestants withdrew, leaving Clinton and Obama in the field.

The committee decided to give Clinton 69 delegates and Obama 59. But Clinton maintains that she should have four more delegates. For Florida, Clinton was allocated 105 pledged delegates and Obama 67. But all these delegates would have half vote each.

After the two States decided to move up their primaries ahead of the party schedule, both candidates had agreed that their delegates would not be counted but as Clinton began losing ground, her campaign challenged the decision. Clinton's supporters attacked the decision, asserting that it is not a democratic norm for 30 members to overturn

the decision of the people.