BOMBAY, 6 June — India’s main opposition Congress party yesterday kept its fingers crossed as its government in the western state of Maharashtra tried desperately to cling on to power after being reduced to a minority.
Senior party leaders here admitted they were up against formidable odds to save the 32-month-old Congress-led coalition government in Maharashtra from collapse after a string of defections left it tottering.
Maharashtra Governor P.C. Alexander late Tuesday gave Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh 10 days to prove his majority in the assembly or resign. The Congress leadership has sent a special emissary to Maharashtra and is in close touch with its key ally, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), to save the ruling coalition in the state.
"As of now there is a 50:50 chance of the government’s survival," a Congress leader said here. "But we are working on our partners so that they return to the fold and vote with us." Speaking to Arab News Deshmukh however said there was no threat to his government. "The crisis will be managed," he said.
But the crisis for the Congress-led coalition has come as a boon for the main opposition combine of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s Hindu extremist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena. The Sena-BJP combine has been itching to topple the government ever since it was routed in the 1999 elections.
The trouble for the Congress erupted Friday when three ministers in Deshmukh’s Cabinet belonging to the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP) resigned. They were upset that Deshmukh re-inducted in his Cabinet Sunil Tatkare, a legislator of the NCP, the second largest partner in the coalition government.
The PWP alleged Tatkare was acting against the PWP in its stronghold of the Raigarh region even though both were members of the coalition.
Two days later, the five-legislator PWP withdrew support to Deshmukh, along with the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) that has two legislators in the 288-seat assembly. The Communist Party of India-Marxist (two legislators) earlier took back its support.
On Tuesday, Deshmukh roped in three independent legislators making them ministers to bolster his wafer-thin majority.
But the situation worsened later in the day when five more legislators quit the coalition, reducing the government to a minority. They then announced their support for the Sena-BJP combine.
This has brought Deshmukh’s government to a minority, making it two short of the halfway mark of 144.
Three of these latest defectors belonged to former Defense Minister Sharad Pawar’s NCP, reducing the number of NCP legislators to 58. The Congress has 74 legislators.
Pawar has been camping in the state capital Bombay to help resolve the crisis.
Some in the Congress, however, believe that Pawar did not do enough to persuade PWP leader N.D. Patil, his brother-in-law, not to rock the coalition.
Relations between the PWP and the NCP deteriorated in February after a PWP nominee lost the election to a district council position in Raigarh to a Shiv Sena candidate because the NCP refused to back it.
The Congress is accusing the PWP of acting at the behest of the Sena-BJP.
"The Sena-BJP has been trying its best to destabilize this government and it is quite obvious the current crisis has their backing," a Congress leader here said. "But we are determined to fight them off."
