Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister may be isolated on the issue of charging independent MLA Raghuraj Pratap Singh, his father and a supporter under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), but by engineering a split in the Congress, she has emerged stronger than before.

The use of POTA in Raghuraj Pratap Singh's case has been vehemently opposed by both the BSP's major coalition partners - the BJP and the Rashtriya Lok Dal, apart from the entire opposition.

A defiant Mayawati, confident of the support of top BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani , however, made it loud and clear that 'POTA will not be withdrawn whether my government stays or goes'.

In this context, the split in the Congress, duly ratified by assembly Speaker Kesri Nath Tripathi, has come as a shot in her arm.

The split, a major blow to the Congress, is also likely to send a strong message to dissidents in the BJP and the RLD, who had in November 2002 tried to topple Mayawati with Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav's help.

It is believed that Raghuraj Pratap Singh's woes owe a lot to his role in those days of uncertainty for the Mayawati government.

Along with the dissidents and independents, Mulayam Singh had been banking on the support of the Congress party's 24 MLAs to get an edge over the ruling coalition in the numbers game. 

A truncated Congress, however, is bound to make things more difficult for him now.

From being the one on the defensive, Mayawati is now on a stronger wicket and her carrot and stick policy to protect her government may have put even Mulayam Singh on tenterhooks.

"Some members of the Samajwadi Party are in touch with us," claimed a senior Bahujan Samaj Party minister, who enjoys close proximity to Mayawati.

SP leader and Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly Azam Khan, however, is confident that 'our 142 MLAs stand united and will remain so'.

No matter how much they resent Mayawati's 'arbitrary style of functioning', the chief minister's success with splitting the Congress would make dissatisfied MLAs of the ruling coalition cautious about embarking on any drastic step against her.

Mayawati is believed to be keeping a close watch on the dissidents who had recently patched up with the BJP leadership after raising the banner of revolt in November last year.

A party source revealed that the chief minister had got the police to prepare dossiers on other vulnerable fence-sitters in the BJP, so they could be kept under restraint and prevented from daring to think of some kind of mischief.

More than anything else, the split in the Congress is a strong message to the BJP's central leadership that Mayawati is quite capable of ensuring the government's survival despite the BJP's failure to keep its flock together.