BOMBAY, 9 March 2005 — Batting on a sticky wicket in his second innings as Maharashtra chief minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh is finding it difficult to face the storm from the dissidents. A faction of powerful dissident players within his Congress party led by Suresh Kalmadi, member of Parliament, aided by the two umpires, Mrs. Prabha Rau, the state Congress chief and Margaret Alva, the All India Congress Committee general secretary, have increased their pressure in their game plan to topple and bowl out Deshmukh soon.
Relations between the two warring pro- and anti-Deshmukh factions took an ugly turn on Monday night, when a large number of furious supporters of Deshmukh surrounded Rau and Alva at the government’s Sahyadri Guest House in Bombay, the venue of the state Congress party coordination committee meeting. Deshmukh’s supporters stormed the venue, shouted slogans and created a scene, alleging that Pune City Congress chief Mohan Joshi was sacked from his post last week at the behest of Kalmadi, who had been Deshmukh’s long time political foe.
Joshi was expelled from the party for six years for his alleged role in the defeat of official Congress candidate Sunil Malke in the Pune Municipal Corporation election.
