PUNE, 29 August 2007 — Differences between the two alliance partners, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), resurfaced when Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh struck down the orders passed by Deputy Chief Minister R.R. Patil.
Deshmukh is from the Congress party, while Patil is from the NCP. Deshmukh on Monday evening struck down Patil's order of suspending the constable Rajendra Kalekar for hugging Sanjay Dutt, and ten other constables for shaking hands with Dutt immediately after the actor's release from the Yerawada Jail in Pune on interim bail.
Following widespread criticism of the action by Patil, who heads the state Home Ministry, Deshmukh expressed shocked and anger at the alacrity with which action was initiated against Kalekar and the other policemen.
Though Patil defended his action and called it completely justified under the Code of Conduct Rules laid down in the Civil Services of the state, Deshmukh did not agree with Patil's justification and termed the action against the policemen "too harsh and inhuman".
Deshmukh said TV footage clearly showed that it was Dutt himself and not the policemen who had taken the initiative to hug and shake hands. Deshmukh issued a late night order revoking the suspension and departmental action against the policemen and asked the Inspector General of Police (Prisons) S.C. Mathur to close the case at the earliest and to ensure that no action was taken against the policemen for what he called "minor lapses."
Junior police officials expressed happiness that the chief minister had taken their side and justice was done, while citing several occasions when high ranking police officials found guilty on similar accounts have been let off.
It's for the first time that Deshmukh has intervened directly in the affairs of the Home Ministry.
The open confrontation between the two ministers of the Democratic Front government in Maharashtra, is just another twist to the gathering storm between the two alliance partners. Patil has taken up the matter with the NCP President Sharad Pawar.
In an another twist to the issue, the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance have demanded the dismissal of Minister of State for Food and Civil Supplies Baba Siddiqui from the Cabinet.
Alleging that Siddiqui is "close" to Dutt" and is always seen around Dutt when he makes public appearances, the parties said that it is not becoming of a state minister to collude with criminals.
However Siddiqui countered the allegations saying "I have always been close to the Dutt family. I am a family friend and I support Sanjay as a friend, not as a minister."
