Pawar cosies up to BJP, alarm rings for Deshmukh

Pawar cosies up to BJP, alarm rings for Deshmukh
HARISH GUPTA

NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 20: The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has been pushed into the throes of a dilemma with its president, Sharad Pawar, joining the national disaster management committee as vice chairman under Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. This has sent out strong political signals.

The NCP is a ruling ally of the Congress in Maharashtra. The Sena-BJP alliance there is working on an action plan to topple the Congress-led Democratic Front government before the budget session of the state legislature commencing on March 12. Union Minister for Information Technology Pramod Mahajan had a marathon meeting with Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray last week to discuss the strategy.

The ruling BJP has apparently extended an offer to Pawar that he should walk out of the alliance in Maharashtra and join the NDA formally. He has been reportedly assured that he himself and former Lok Sabha Speaker P A Sangma would be inducted into the Union Cabinet while others can be accommodated elsewhere.

If Pawar goes ahead and joins the NDA, there may be split in the 59-member NCP Legislature Party in Maharashtra, and this would certainly lead to the fall of the Vilasrao Deshmukh government. If Pawar is willing, an alternative government could be formed with a truncated NCP, BJP (56 MLAs) and Shiv Sena (70 MLAs).

Under the formula worked out, Narayan Rane would be Chief Minister and Ajit Pawar (NCP) and Gopinath Munde (BJP) deputy chief ministers.

This has the approval of Sangma, who has been trying to persuade Pawar for a long time that the NCP must formally join hands with the NDA and share power. In fact, Sangma was quite upbeat when the party leadership, comprising Pawar, Sangma and two general secretaries -- Tariq Anwar and Praful Patel -- held a close-door meeting last week to discuss their course of action. The meeting was held at the residence of Pawar on February 13.

However, what has queered the pitch for the leaders is the spate of protests from the rank and file of the NCP in Maharashtra. Soon after Pawar accepted the post, he developed cold feet and held a meeting with the BJP leadership. He has no problems in joining hands with the BJP but is wary of the Shiv Sena. He is learnt to have asked the BJP leadership to persuade the Sena to stay out of the government and support it from outside. He was willing to accept Gopinath Munde as CM.

Pawar is reported to have said that the rank and file of the party in Maharashtra would not accept his joining hands with the Shiv Sena. He and his party workers in Maharashtra had fought the Sena all through.

The NCP and its allies have 11 MPs in the Lok Sabha and their indirect support will more than neutralise the setback NDA suffered when the PMK walked out with five Lok Sabha MPs.

Kripa Shanker, Maharashtra Minister of State for Home, confirmed to The Indian Express that he had information of some `secret political plan'. Kripa Shanker was in the Capital, along with the Chief Minister, and called on Congress leaders, including Sonia Gandhi and Madhavrao Scindia.

According to a BJP leader, immediately after the elections, there had been a proposal to form the government with the help of NCP. However, it was thenopposed by Bal Thackeray. Now since the Sena-BJP alliance has been unable to topple the government on its own, a fresh proposal has been submitted to Thackeray. Thackeray has not rejected the idea.

If the NCP splits, Enron will be one of the main reasons. NCP leaders here feel that Deshmukh took personal interest in setting up a high-level review committee to embarrass Sharad Pawar, who was responsible for clearing the multi-crore project.