Reacting to Pawar's charge made in Pune yesterday, he said, ``A coterie is good once I am in. It is condemnable when I am out''.

He told reporters that the party leaders and workers did not agree with the issue raised by expelled leaders as Gandhi was elected by the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) to head the alternative government before she went to President K R Narayanan after the fall of the Vajapyee Government.

Pawar, he said, had on many occasions come out in support of Gandhi as Prime Minister, saying she was the natural choice for the post. He said things would have been different had the three expelled leaders demanded a discussion on the issue of foreign origin, but the matter was now before the people and the media.

Mukherjee said itwas for the people to decide who the Prime Minister should be, as they were the ones who chose members of Parliament, who in turn elected the PM. The issue of foreign origin was even discussed by the Constituent Assembly, which had decided that there should be no discrimination between two citizens.

Mukherjee said if their demand for debarring an Indian citizen of foreign origin was accepted, no person in Sikkim and Goa born before 1974 and 1961 respectively would be in high office.