UPA constituent Kerala Congress (Mani) today expressed unhappiness over not being invited for the meeting of the UPA Coordination Committee convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The party, headed by Kerala Finance Minister K M Mani, has two MPs. His son Jose K Mani represents Kottayam in Lok Sabha and senior party leader Joy Abraham is a Rajya Sabha member.
"Kerala Congress was part of the UPA meetings which took many policy decisions in the past. The party should have been invited when the UPA finalise its strategy and framing policies. Obviously the party is upset," a party source told PTI.
Sources said when party leaders contacted to know about the reasons why they were being kept out of the Coordination Committee, the alliance leadership informed them that the representatives of the allies which are part of the UPA government are invited for the meeting.
Kerala Congress (M), whose main source of support is the farming community, is also a key ally of Kerala's ruling Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF).
The UPA coordination meeting was convened to finalise the strategy of the ruling coalition in the three-month-long Budget Session of Parliament which began last week.
The meeting was held hours after the presentation of the Railway Budget and ahead of the unveiling of the General Budget 2013-14 which is expected to be a populist affair.
The frequency of meetings of the coordination committees had increased sometime back when NCP protested against allies being not considered by the Congress on a regular basis.
However, there have been very few such interactions since Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress walked out of the UPA last year.
