Congress, NCP face-off in Maharashtra likely

Although the Congress has gone in for alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in five of the 27 Zilla Parishads in Maharashtra going to polls on March 11, it is not a friendly contest in the remaining 23 districts between the two, which are sharing power both, in the state and at the Centre.

The Congress party is geared up to "teach a lesson" to the NCP in Zilla Parishad elections as Congress leaders believe that the NCP was instrumental in the party's rout in last month's municipal elections.

According to Congress sources, the party high command is "fed up" with NCP leader and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar's "one upmanship" in matters relating to his ministry and his political muscle-flexing as displayed in the recent municipal elections.

Former Shiv Sena leader Narayan Rane's success in poaching his former party "" he has already brought six MLAs and one MP into the Congress fold "" has only bolstered the confidence of the ruling party to take on its friend-cum-rival NCP.

Therefore, the central leadership of the Congress is taking no chances in the forthcoming Zilla Parishad elections.

Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi has deputed six Central leaders, including BK Hari Prasad for western Maharashtra, Bharat Singh Solanki for Marathwada region, Ajay Maken for Vidarbha region, and Ved Prakash for Konkan region, to supervise the party's preparations for the crucial election. "We will show Pawar who is the boss in Maharashtra," said one of them.

These leaders have been visiting different parts of the state reaching out to grassroots workers, leaving nothing to faction-ridden state Congress.

AICC General Secretary Margaret Alva and Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee President Prabha Rao were reported to have drawn daggers against each other recently on the issue of the six Central observers. Incidentally, until recently, Alva and Rao jointly led a section of state Congress against Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.

However, AICC General Secretary BK Hari Prasad refuted suggestions that the deployment of senior AICC functionaries had anything to do with factionalism.

"It's the state leaders who are looking after everything. We are just going there, meeting local leaders and workers to exhort them to give their best in this crucial election. You just watch out for the Congress' performance this time," he told the Business Standard.

Another central observer said the Congress President wanted to take no chance in this election.

"We have to show that without Congress, Pawar is finished. If we don't flex our muscle now, our cadre will get demoralised. We are the No 1 party in Maharashtra today and we cannot play second fiddle to Pawar," he said.