Cracks in Pune Cong as pro and anti Kalmadi factions clash

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Concerned over the factional discord between pro and anti-Suresh Kalamdi elements within the city Congress and its potential to damage the party prospects in the upcoming civic elections in Pune, party bosses initiated a reconciliatory process to bring the warring groups together at a meeting held here.

The venue for the meeting called by MPCC president Manikrao Thakre and AICC general secretary in charge of Maharashtra Mohan Prakash last evening was a hotel on Pune-Satara road where about 25 prominent party workers including Abhay Chhajed, Pune city Congress president and a strong supporter of the suspended MP, former Maharashtra minister Balasaheb Shivarkar, Ulhas Pawar and Mohan Joshi, both MLCs, belonging to anti-Kalmadi faction were present.

Despite the efforts by both Thakre and Prakash to impress upon the group leaders the need to work together in the absence of Kalmadi to prepare for civic elections, the meeting saw heated exchanges between the supporters and detractors of Kalmadi, who is facing charges of corruption in the Commonwealth Games scam, party sources said.

The friction resulted from the demand of 'loyalists' (anti-Kalmadi faction) seeking time to be heard by the party high command which was opposed by pro-Kalmadi elements, sources said.

Thakre and Prakash had to intervene to pacify the participants when one of the anti-Kalmadi leaders wanted to leave the meeting, they added.

An anti-Kalmadi faction leader said the 'loyalists' were 'humiliated' at the meeting. The city unit head Chhajed, however, denied surfacing of serious differences at the deliberations and maintained that all party workers had responded positively to the appeal by Thakre and Prakash.

Asked about the reports of clashes and squabbles at the meeting, Chhajed, who recently went to Delhi with Kalmadi supporters to meet the scam tainted MP raising eyebrows in the party circles, said 'there were minor differences of opinion which are being blown up'.

After Kalmadi's absence from the local politics which he dominated for over two decades, representing Pune in Lok Sabha for three terms, a demand for collective leadership has been gathering momentum to prevent any particular faction from becoming powerful to call the shots in selection of candidates for the municipal polls.

Chhajed, Kalmadi's close aide, said the Pune Congress was determined to work unitedly to face the civic elections, due early next year.

Congress had under Kalmadi's leadership suffered a jolt in the previous (2007) civic elections when NCP, which emerged as the single largest party in the house, managed to wrest power from it by joining hands with Shiv Sena and BJP, in the controversial 'Pune Pattern', shaped by Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.