Prepare for life without Cong in Maharashtra: Pawar to team

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) President Sharad Pawar on Saturday gave two messages to the 20 party ministers in the Maharashtra cabinet: One, prepare for an independent fight in all 288 assembly constituencies in Maharashtra; and two, perform or perish. Pawar, who held a closed-door meeting with the ministers, also sent out a stern message to the Congress not to take NCP for granted.

In Maharashtra, NCP is annoyed with the style of functioning of Ashok Chavan, the Congress chief minister. The Congress and NCP have been at loggerheads on various issues including Mumbai’s makeover, free houses to textile workers affected by the closure of the mills and also the Maharashtra-Karnataka border issue. Incidentally, NCP, which was formed in June 1999 after Pawar was suspended by the Congress for talking about the foreign origins of Sonia Gandhi, has been sharing power with the Congress in the state for the last 11 years.

Pawar, at the outset, told his ministers that coalition politics was here to stay. However, NCP should gear itself for a standalone fight in Maharashtra. Pawar declined to comment.

However, an NCP general secretary who did not want to be quoted told Business Standard: “Even though 62 party members were elected to the state assembly in 2009, NCP remains unrepresented in 226 assembly segments. The party has set up block, city, taluka, district and regional units. However, the party organisation needs to be made stronger so that NCP can fight independently in all the 288 assembly constituencies in the next elections in 2014.”

The NCP leader said ministers have been asked to pull up their socks and carry out extensive visits not restricted to their assembly constituencies but across the district and region. State NCP chief Madhukar Pichad said: “Very soon a two-month long programme for such visits and party workshops will be released for ministers. The idea is to increase NCP’s presence across the state. Besides, the party chief has called for giving more representation to youths in the organisation as well as in nominations for various elections.”

According to the party leader, Pawar pulled up some of the ministers for their poor performance in the government as well as in the party. In fact, Pawar’s displeasure was shared by one of the senior ministers who hinted that such ministers may be sacked if they continue to perform badly.