Mathlink call from python works with cmd.exe but not with IDEs!!

[Anand]

Hi,
   I am calling a mathematica engine (mathlink) from python. It has a
dll interface that gets an instance of this engine and then
communicates with the engine and returns the results. Things work fine
till this point. When i run the code from c:\python "mathlink.py" i
have no problem. After execution the mathlink engine is shutdown. But
when i run the code from Idle, the mathlink engine shuts down only
when i close idle!. The problem is this same thing happens with other
ide's as well. I cannot have more than 2 mathlink kernel loaded. This
means after 2 calls my program fails if i dont exit the ide!  Is there
anyway for me to shutdown the kernel?