The Tories have not given up hope of securing boundary changes that could boost their chances of victory in the next general election but have not offered the Liberal Democrats extra state funding in return, party co-chairman Grant Shapps said.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has vowed to block re-drawn boundaries - which would reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 - in a House of Commons vote next year in revenge for rebel Tory backbenchers wrecking his plans for House of Lords reform.
Experts had predicted the Conservative Party would gain up to 20 seats as a result of the boundary changes - which could be the difference between an overall Tory majority and another hung parliament in 2015.
Shapps conceded that failure to approve the constituency shake-up "absolutely makes it harder" for the party to win the election but insisted the changes were not dead.
"A week's a long time in politics, a year is a lifetime in politics, I think an awful lot can happen between now and then," he told BBC1's Sunday Politics.
"I haven't given up hope for it because it was in the Coalition Agreement, because Nick Clegg came out very strongly and said it was right for the basis of fairness.
"But, I'm putting in place a strategy for us to win the election regardless."
Asked if he was in talks in a bid to win Lib Dem support in return for party funding reforms, he said: "No."
A senior Liberal Democrat source said however that there was "absolutely nothing they can say to change our minds".
"We could not have made our position any more crystal clear. There seems to be an unwillingness to accept the reality that the Liberal Democrats have decided categorically that we are not going to support that."
Shapps said there were some "encouraging signs" for the Tories - such as the fact that they were "not polling as badly" as during the 1983-1987 parliament.