Pawar threatens to quit Cabinet
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Union ministers Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel are said to have offered to quit from the Cabinet to protest the “Big Brother” attitude of the Congress.
NCP spokesperson D.P. Tripathi, however, said Thursday he was not aware of Mr Pawar and Mr Patel having any plan to resign from the Cabinet. But he accepted that there has been a lack of coordination between the UPA allies and reiterated his party’s stand that there should be a coordination committee for regular consultations.
Mr Tripathi said NCP leaders will meet and discuss the latest developments and only then will he be able to comment. “One thing I can confirm is that the UPA is intact. There is no crisis of confidence... We are an integral part of the UPA. We have just voted in the presidential elections,” he said. He also said his party was preparing for “historic support” for vice-presidential candidate Hamid Ansari.
But the growing dissension between the Congress and the NCP could have a bearing on stability in Maharashtra. Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar and heavy industries minister Praful Patel skipped the Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh amid a row over the pecking order in the government, which has relegated the NCP chief to third position.
While the Cabinet meeting was taking place at the PM’s residence at 6 pm, Mr Pawar was closeted with Mr Patel and Mr Tripathi at his residence here. The row erupted after Mr Pranab Mukherjee, the de facto number two, quit the government to contest the presidential polls. “For the first time in eight years, Mr Pawar and Mr Patel did not go to the Cabinet meeting,” Mr Tripathi told reporters.
Asked whether the pecking order was the issue, he claimed Mr Pawar had never sought any position and that the “issues (for which they skipped the meeting) were much higher”.
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