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With Prime Minister A B Vajpayee hinting at an early expansion of the Union Council of Ministers, there are fresh hopes among the Bharatiya Janata Party's allies in Tamil Nadu.
With the DMK leader of the BJP-National Democratic Alliance in the state in no condition to assert its natural supremacy, parties like the MGR ADMK and MGR Kazhagam are hopeful of getting a berth each, while hopes of the TMC Democratic Forum and the PMK joining the ruling alliance at the Centre have also come into focus.
MGR ADMK founder and former state minister S Thirunavukkarasu has been keen on joining the Cabinet. A member of the Lok Sabha from native Pudukottai constituency, he has been sulking since the 1999 polls as DMK supremo M Karunanidhi had not recommended his name to the BJP leadership. Likewise, the lone MGR Kazhagam member of the Lok Sabha, S Jagathrakshagan has been hoping for a berth at the Centre.
MGR Kazhagam founder and one-time MGR aide, R M Veerappan, unlike Thirunavukkarasu, had lied low during seat-sharing talks for the just-concluded assembly polls, hoping that the DMK would recommend Jagathrakshahan's candidature to the prime minister.
With the DMK's stock having fallen to an extent in the BJP's eyes, after the assembly poll debacle, both parties seem to feel that Vajpayee could not - and would not - ignore the legitimate claims of the party's minor allies from the state.
The two vacancies for ministers of state that were created with the exit of the PMK from the Vajpayee government and the NDA need to be filled. As allies of the DMK, the MGR ADMK and MGR Kazhagam are hopeful of getting ministerial berths that anyway did not belong to the alliance leader from the state. However, there are now hopefuls from within the DMK, who feel that they need to be compensated, particularly after the assembly poll debacle that had closed the doors to power, locally.
Simultaneously, the possibilities of the TMC Democratic Forum under former Union finance minister P Chidambaram joining the BJP-NDA are being explored.
The DMK allies, including the BJP, have enough MLAs to get a candidate elected in the biennial Rajya Sabha polls, due next month, but that would involve the BJP and the TMC Democratic Forum accepting each other.
At one level, Chidambaram is considered the 'find' of this assembly polls, whose rallies attracted responsive crowds at all venues. However, as the author of the phrase 'hidden agenda' that targeted the 'Hindutva BJP', Chidambaram had studiously avoided the assembly election rally addressed by Vajpayee at Madras, and campaigned elsewhere in the city that day.
While he may now find returning to the TMC parent that much more difficult after the assembly poll victories of the parent party in the company of his AIADMK rival, the BJP too seems to have realised its organisational weakness in the state, despite the successive Lok Sabha poll victories of 1998 and 1999.
The BJP is said to be looking around for a popular and more acceptable face to lead the state party, while Chidambaram would have to take a decision on converting the TMC Democratic Forum into a political party of its own. His original declaration of the forum being a 60-day wonder, only for the elections, may not materialise. Even if he were willing to return to the TMC - about which doubts persist - there are those within the party who would rather have him out of their way.
Time was when the DMK leadership was said to be keen on having Chidambaram as its 'eyes and ears' to the outside world in his own right, while Madras Mayor M K Stalin took over the state's reins from Karunanidhi.
While the DMK has come a cropper in the assembly polls, questions remain about repositioning Chidambaram at the Centre, if only to share responsibilities of senior DMK ideologue Murasoli Maran, who has been ailing for some months.
Against this, the return of the Vanniar-strong PMK to the BJP-NDA could be more complicated. Despite winning 20 assembly seats in Tamil Nadu in the AIADMK's company, the PMK is unhappy over not being able to obtain chief ministership of Pondicherry, where the party drew a blank, instead.
Having lost two ministers of state in the Vajpayee Government, the PMK would not be averse to returning to the NDA fold, if only over time.
The NDA has made direct moves over the head of the DMK, with MDMK General Secretary Vaiko calling on PMK founder S Ramadoss in the days following the assembly polls. Like the MDMK, which is no more a member of the DMK-led alliance in the state, the PMK could also join the NDA at the Centre - both parties keeping future options open in regional politics.
As if on cue, PMK Assembly leader G K Mani, reopened the topic in the House on Thursday, charging the DMK with conspiring his party's exit from the NDA.
However, neither the BJP nor the PMK is in any great hurry. The BJP would have to wait for the electoral euphoria in the voters' minds to die down in Tamil Nadu before taking the next step. The PMK is keen on a double win in the AIADMK's company in the local bodies polls that are due before October.
That would have given the PMK and the BJP enough time to forget fissures of the assembly polls, and might have opened new fissures on the AIADMK front, instead.
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