The co-ruling Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Friday gave an ultimatum to the Congress on deciding about continuing their alliance in Maharashtra. Union minister Sharad Pawar’s party even said it was prepared to sit in the Opposition if “big brother” Congress decided to call off their 13-year tie-up in the state.
The 1999-founded NCP’s warning comes at a time when the Congress, also ruling at the Centre, has got itself into a blow-hot-blow-cold relationship with a couple of other allies of the ruling UPA , the Trinamool Congress and the DMK. That the presidential elections are due this July has added to the piquancy of the situation.
The trigger for the NCP’s ultimatum was the Congress’ unilateral move to arrive at an understanding with rival Shiv Sena, thus getting its nominee appointed as leader of the opposition in the Thane Municipal Corporation that went to the saffron alliance.
This is despite the NCP having more numbers. The party was also irked over the Congress’s decision to “dump the coalition dharma” in a few other municipalities, zilla parishads and panchayat samitis, where the “big brother” joined hand with the Sena in a bid to keep the NCP at bay.
A belligerent Congress has hit back, saying that NCP should not take it for granted; instead, stick to alliance dynamics. It had earlier blasted the NCP for going together with the BJP and the Sena in several of the latest local and civic bodies in the state. The grand old party also indicated it was preparing grounds for going it alone in the 2014 Lok Sabha and assembly elections. Ministers and senior leaders now say the top leadership of both parties will decide the fate of the state government.
On its part, the NCP said the Congress should reveal its stand at the earliest, especially when the elections to the Maharashtra Legislative Council are slated for next month and June. The NCP has said it might taken its own electoral decision if the Congress had firmed up its mind on not tying up with the alliance partner at the polls. The NCP’s warning has further revealed the widening gap with Congress. Pawar’s party has been fuming over Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan recommending a year ago to dissolve the NCP-dominated board of directors of Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank.
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The NCP had also openly criticised Chavan for preferring his Congress party when it comes to choosing helmsmen for plum ministries and top undertakings. In the recent polls to the 227-member BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation, the Congress and contested in alliance with the NCP, but the latter was quick to disown Chavan’s statement that the Sena would become insignificant after the results (declared in February).
On Friday, an agitated state NCP chief Madhukar Pichad said it was unfortunate that Congress leaders had time to interact with the Sena brass, but found no time to hold talks with its alliance partner. “The Congress has no right to accuse us of siding with the Sena or the BJP (to assume power in some local and civic bodies),” he told Business Standard. “It is they (Congress) who made the beginning in this regard and set the trend. We simply followed it.”
Pichad targeted state Congress party chief Manikrao Thakre for “breaking” the party’s alliance in his home district of Yavatmal, as he was insisting for the nomination of his son for the post of president of the zilla parishad. “We never did politics of sons and relatives; our politics is broad-based,” he claimed. “We implement policies that are in the larger interest of people...ones that are crucial for the state and nation.” The NCP’s move comes at a time when Pawar, as Union agriculture minister, has flayed the UPA government’s “anti-farmer” policies. He has done it with special reference to the Manmohan Singh dispensation’s flip-flop over a ban on cotton exports.
Pawar had also expressed serious displeasure over Singh’s recent statement that coalition compulsions were making difficult decisions “still more difficult”.
“The NCP,” Pawar noted, “has been ally of the UPA since 2004. We never made any statement in the public against it, nor have we criticised a decision of the (UPA) government.”