a. Either way the trust vote turns out, the general election will be held sooner than expected. Maybe this winter because it is believed that the law of diminishing returns has set in for the government. If the vote is lost, that probability becomes a certainty.

What happens if the govt wins the trust vote

b. If the government loses the vote, it will also mean that Sonia Gandhi [Images], Dr Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi [Images] -- the great hope of the Congress -- are unaware of the ground realties of India. It can be a very embarrassing charge any politician could face. It will be a historic setback for the Congress that it could not win in spite of the favourable publicity they received in the media.

c. Mayawati will emerge a stronger leader. The Left parties' cadres will toil for her to make the class-caste (poor-Dalit) combine their constituency.

d. The BJP will face a dilemma as the Third Front becomes a certainty and that erodes the BJP's prospects of forming an alliance. L K Advani, the BJP's prime ministerial aspirant, may see that the non-Congress secular votes will move towards the Left-Mayawati combine. On the other hand, if the BJP takes recourse to raising Hindutva, it will not bring political dividends, as such a course will only play into the hands of the Third Front.

e. Sonia Gandhi will realise that her aam-aadmi theme song and her push for the nuclear deal could not jell well in one basket, as there is a fundamental contradiction.

f. The coming assembly elections will be impacted by an UPA defeat. It will have a ripple effect and won't help the Congress.

g. The blame game will begin tonight. Also, the defeat will erode the unseen clout of Rahul Gandhi who said he believes in losing power but would like to stand behind the nuclear deal.

h. If the UPA loses, Dr Singh is even more unlikely to be the Congress choice for prime minister in the next election.

i. Dr Singh's legacy will spell that his debatable pro-US political stance ultimately helped neither his party nor his government.

j. The nuclear deal will be in real trouble. The plans to push the India-US strategic alliance will be in jeopardy. It will be a huge setback for outgoing US President George W Bush [Images] and Dr Singh.

k. In international terms, the development will largely be seen as a facet of India's robust democratic process. Washington, DC will also continue to expand the larger agenda of forging cooperation with an emerging democratic power like India.