PUNE, 9 October 2006 — After the spilt and then patch up between the Shiv Sena and BJP two days ago, follows another political upheaval between the Congress party and its alliance partner Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) with the former giving clear indications that it would contest the forthcoming local body polls in Maharashtra in November and then in February 2007 on its own.
This is seen as the beginning of a battle of political supremacy with NCP in the key state. Signs of a rift between the two coalition partners which are in alliance in the Democratic Front (DF) government in Maharashtra, emerged following the statement of senior Congress leader and federal minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office, Prithviraj Chavan, while speaking at the concluding session of the youth Congress training camp Saturday evening, ruling out a prepoll alliance with the NCP for the forthcoming elections to the local bodies in the state.
Responding to the demand of party workers and speakers at the seminar who urged Chavan to communicate to the party high command not to enter into a prepoll alliance with the NCP for the local self-government bodies, Chavan urged the party seniors not to have an alliance with the NCP even for the next assembly elections and said that he and many other senior leaders had objected to the prepoll alliance with the NCP during the last assembly elections itself.
“It’s most unfortunate that our sitting Congress legislators wanted to have an alliance with the NCP and their demand was accepted by the party high command,” Chavan stated.
Asked to elaborate on the reasons as to why the Congress preferred to fight the polls on its own, Chavan said that a victory in the local bodies’ election will only strengthen the Congress base. “We had to seek the support of alliance partners to come to power, as a result, we have been facing many restrictions while running the government in Delhi and in Maharashtra” Chavan said.
The All India Congress Committee (AICC) has told the Congress legislators, Members of Parliament and Ministers in Maharashtra state that they would be held responsible for the outcome of polls in their constituency, a warning that if the Congress fares badly in their constituency in the polls, they would lose renomination.
In an indirect attack on NCP President Sharad Pawar, Chavan said that “Some people have floated parties because they aspire to become prime minister. There are many regional parties and the rising number of political parties is harmful to the country as it affects the stability of the government” he said.
Veteran Congress leader and chairman of the Rest of Maharashtra statutory development board, Ulhas Pawar, severely criticized the Congress ministers in Maharashtra for failing to promote the Congress policies and achievements among the people. Taking pot shots at the ministers, Pawar said that the NCP ministers were touring the state and seeking credit for several decisions and packages announced by the Federal finance ministry. He questioned as to who had prevented the Congress ministers from conducting such tours.
