Cordial ties impossible without NCP's co-operation, says Maha Congress

Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Manikrao Thakre on Monday said that a conducive atmosphere for a cordial alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party is impossible without the latter's co-operation.

"We expect the other side (NCP) also to reciprocate in the same manner," Thakre said, when asked about Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan's recent statement that the Congress-NCP alliance will continue for the 2014 assembly as well as Lok Sabha elections, and that there was no bitterness between the two allies.

He said that NCP state president Madhukar Pichad's comments against the chief Minister were unwarranted.

"Elections are still two years away. Both allies will be responsible for creating a conducive atmosphere to seek re-election for a fourth term," he said.

He said that the latest round of the verbal duel was not started by him.

"It was home minister R R Patil who said Congress leaders went to jail before Independence, fighting against the British, whereas now they are imprisoned for corruption. My natural reaction to it was that NCP is a party of criminals. If we are targeted, we will politically respond to such allegations," he said.

He said Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan had headed a transparent government for the last two years and by the end of the present legislative assembly's tenure, the Congress would have fulfilled 90 per cent of its poll promises. He said the Indu Mill land transfer for an Ambedkar memorial was in its final stages. "The opposition was playing politics by crying hoarse that the decision was delayed," he said. He urged the state government to fulfil its promise of making the state free of electricity load shedding by December 2012. "Efforts must be taken to provide electricity to the people at minimum cost," he said.