Cong asks partymen not to air views in public on ties with NCP

A day after Sonia Gandhi and Sharad Pawar shared a platform in Mumbai,the Congress sent a stern message to partymen against airing their views in public on the issue of alliance with the NCP in the coming Assembly elections in Maharashtra. “NCP is our coalition partner in Maharashtra as well as in the Central Government. Till we are in a coalition,no individual Congress worker should express any personal opinion through the media”,AICC General Secretary Janardhan Dwivedi told reporters.

He said that no partyman has a right to comment on the issue publicly and if anyone has any individual opinion,it should be conveyed to the leadership. Dwivedi’s remarks came close on the heels of NCP leader P A Sangma asking ally Congress to decide on alliance for the polls in Maharashtra by July 15. Reports had it that in an apparent overture to facilitate the tie-up,NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Tuesday proposed the Bandra-Worli sealink be named after Rajiv Gandhi. The sealink was inaugurated by the Congress President. Former Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh is leading a section in the Congress which is strongly advocating the ‘go it alone’ policy on the lines of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar where the party contested the Lok Sabha polls on its own.

Congress leaders Prithviraj Chavan and Digvijay Singh have also said that the party should not go in for a pre-poll alliance. Anil Shastri,who is a special invitee to the Congress Working Committee and also editor of the party mouthpiece Congress Sandesh too has said the party will be “better off” without a pre-poll alliance with NCP.

Gandhi’s visit to Maharashtra yesterday was the first after the Lok Sabha elections in which Congress secured 17 seats in the state,but its alliance partner NCP got only 8 seats. Maharashtra has a total of 48 Lok Sabha seats. Gandhi has already started consultations with party leaders on the issue and recently had meetings with Deshmukh and Sushilkumar Shinde,who is also a former Chief Minister.

Sangma,who heads the strategic committee formed by Pawar for the coming assembly elections,has said “The consensus of the rank and file of the party is that we should continue the alliance with Congress.” NCP leaders have been contending that an alliance with Congress was necessary as the Shiv Sena-BJP combine would benefit if Congress and NCP contested the poll separately.

Besides,they say that if the alliance continued at the Centre and not in Maharashtra,it would send a wrong message.