PUNE, Dec 23: Congress MLA Rambhau Mozhe, a staunch supporter of Sharad Pawar and aspirant for the Lok Sabha ticket from Pune, today indicated that he meant business and that there was no backing out from the race for party nomination.

"I have applied for the Lok Sabha ticket to the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) and hope to secure it and retain the seat for the party," Mozhe said while speaking informally to mediapersons here today.

"You reap what you sow," was all that Mozhe said when asked whether he was confident of beating the high-flying Suresh Kalmadi to the post. "I have always worked for the Congress and have never indulged in any anti-party activities." This statement by Congress MLA, who was fast emerging as a rallying point for the anti-Kalmadi faction within the city Congress unit, gains significance as he was being seen as a reluctant candidate rather than a serious contender for the Lok Sabha elections. Mozhe's supporters also had preferred to maintain silence all these days over his claim to the party ticket.

When asked as to why he had kept away from the much-publicised function to felicitate former city unit chief Balasaheb Shivarkar organised by the anti-Kalmadi faction last weekend, Mozhe clarified that he was not pressurised by his leader, Sharad Pawar, and that it was his individual decision to avoid "washing dirty linen in public" in the best interests of the party.

The Congress MLA, who is known as a calculative politician in local political circles, belongs to the Maratha lobby, which was a force to reckon with in city politics until it was forced into virtual political oblivion since the emergence of Kalmadi a few years ago.

His move was being widely perceived in political circles as a retaliatory move to settle old scores with Kalmadi. It was a well-known fact that Mozhe had retained the Bopodi assembly segment in 1992 in spite of Kalmadi putting his might behind Congress rebel candidate Baliram Sawant.

"There is a limit to our endurance. We have suffered in silence for too long," Mozhe said while echoing the feelings of the anti-Kalmadi faction which was being led by former MLAs Balasaheb Shivarkar, Sharad Ranpise and Prakash Dhere, who have recently joined hands with Pawar's bete noire V N Gadgil.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.