UPA allies miffed over ordinance move

Allies of the ruling UPA voiced their unhappiness Wednesday over the government's handling of the controversial ordinance - first by passing it and then axing it after Rahul Gandhi's protest.

Both the United Progressive Alliance partners, the NCP and the National Conference, appeared miffed after the cabinet, headed by Prime Minster Manmohan Singh, took a u-turn and withdrew the ordinance and the bill that seeks to save convicted lawmakers from disqualification.

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, who was not in agreement with Wednesday's move, did not look too happy as he came out of the cabinet meeting.

"We (NCP) have communicated our views. What I said was said in complete secrecy. I made my views clear," the agriculture minister told reporters.

National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah, who too was not at home with the U-turn, was blunt: "It was a cabinet decision then, it is a cabinet decision now... I am not upset, but I am not happy."

Earlier, Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Agarwal said that if the ordinance was withdrawn, it would prove the Gandhi scion was bigger than the central government.

Earlier, Farooq Abdullah, the union minister for new and renewable energy, commenting on Rahul Gandhi's public trashing of the ordinance, said: "I think someone must have advised him on this. I think, they advised him wrongly. While the PM was out, he should have waited for him to come back, then put his point of view directly."

"That would have been the right way. ... I hope there will be better advisers in future and he will consult other UPA constituents ..., find better ways of taking things forward," Abdullah said.