On a day when the picture seemed just perfect with UPA presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee all set for a smooth drive to Rashtrapati Bhavan, the Centre was again thrown into a crisis. NCP heavyweight and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and his lieutenant Heavy Industries Minister Praful Patel not only skipped a Cabinet meeting, but also offered to quit.
Worse still, the NCP leader — one of the most stable and trouble-free allies of the UPA — made no attempt to hide his displeasure over the manner in which the leading party of the alliance, the Congress, was handling coalition politics. A source close to Pawar said, sounding quite miffed, “The Congress does not know how to run a coalition government. But we waited till the voting for the presidential elections to get over as a courtesy to the coalition.”
Though Patel later denied that resignations were to the PM, there was no categorical denial of the threat to quit the government.
The resignation offer may have been made when Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel rushed to Pawar’s residence after he gave the 6’0 clock Cabinet meeting a miss, despite being in Delhi.
Before skipping Thursday’s Cabinet meeting, Pawar and Patel had been conspicuously absent from the UPA coordination meet last Saturday, where Hamid Ansari was named as the coalition’s vice presidential candidate.
Talking to Express, Patel however, had clarified that they were not opposed to Ansari’s candidature (in fact, Pawar made it a point to be present when Ansari filed his nominations later), but were miffed with the way Congress had slighted Pawar.
Pawar may be a bit sore over his downgrading in the Cabinet ranking with Defence Minister AK Antony taking over Mukherjee’s No.2 slot, but he is more upset over the manner in which NCP ministers in the Maharashtra Cabinet are being treated by CM Prithviraj Chavan. “Pawar knows that a leader of a non-Congress party with limited numbers cannot be holding a formal No.2 position in a Congress-led Cabinet,” sources aware of the inner dynamics said.
It was also pointed out that Chavan had been targeting NCP ministers and had ignored Pawar’s advice on several occasions. It should not ignored that Pawar had a big role to play in Pranab’s Rashtrapati race.