After assuring voters in Bellary that she would ``never desert them'' even if she won both the seats (the other being `home' constituency Amethi in Uttar Pradesh), Sonia on Tuesday resigned as the Lok Sabha member from Bellary.

Party sources said Sonia's advisors leaned on her to retain the seat in Uttar Pradesh as the party seemed poised to improve its performance in the state assembly elections early next year. The fact that it bagged 10 seats from UP in the parliamentary elections up from zilch is being attributed to her `charisma' and her coterie thinks the future looks rosy.

On the other hand, Congress is once more comfortably placed in what used to be its southern bastion of Karnataka with chief minister SM Krishna sitting pretty on a sizeable majority in the newly elected state legislative assembly.

All of which added up to make Bellary expendable as far as Sonia was concerned.

However, according to Bellary Congress leader KC Kondaiah (who had given up his seat for Sonia) Krishna has been given instructions to accord special status to the backward district. In fact, three of the ministers in the state cabinet are from Bellary.

While the party is still to decide on a replacement for Sonia in the by-elections likely to be conducted in February or March 2000, insiders say there is slim chance of either of her children --- Rahul or Priyanka --- stepping in.

Kondaiah will most likely be rewarded with a Rajya Sabha seat (probably the one vacated by Krishna) which should be a shoo-in. Any other Congress candidate would probably find the by-election a cake-walk on two counts: one, Bellary has always returned a Congress candidate to Parliament and, two, the feisty Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Sushma Swaraj who stood up to Sonia is unlikely to return to this arena.

According to the BJP camp, Sushma was fielded in Bellary with the singular purpose of taking on (and, it had hoped in vain, defeating) Sonia. Too, it is struggling with the dynamics of the state politics with poll allies including former chief minister JH Patel's Janata Dal (U) and former Union minister Ramakrishna Hegde's Lok Shakti opting out of the marriage.

Kondaiah too feels certain that Sushma will not return to fight the Bellary by-election. He added smugly, ``Even if she does, she won't stand a chance.''

But Sonia doesn't want to look like she has deserted Bellary. So, along with planned investments of around Rs 150 crore for both the city and rural areas, schemes to spend another Rs 80-100 crore are in the pipeline. The schemes aim to improve the city's pathetically inadequate drainage and sewerage systems, roads as also its drinking water supply system.