Congress will go solo in Maharashtra civic polls

NEW DELHI: In what could herald a fresh churning in Congress-NCP relations, the Maharashtra alliance partners seem set to contest the upcoming local body elections in the state separately. The Congress on Sunday sent out strong indications that it would like to fight the local body polls on its own, in a possible bid to gain the upper hand over Sharad Pawar’s party.

The two partners have been taking pot-shots at each other for the last few months, and the disaffection reached a peak in July when NCP chief and union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar came under attack from members of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) for his handling of the price situation.

Subsequently, the NCP hit out at the Congress for its alliance management skills and for playing ‘big brother’ in the UPA. It had characterised the Congress as “fast losing ground” from its National convention in Dehra Dun in September.

Things were brought under control after a meeting between Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Mr Pawar on the eve of the Congress chief ministers’ conclave in Nainital late last month. However, with the Congress’ latest decision to keep away from a new alliance equation with the NCP, the bid for political supremacy in the state is out in the open.

Talking about upcoming local body polls, Congress general secretary in charge of Maharashtra, Margaret Alva, gave clear indications that her party would be going it alone in the polls to zila parishads, municipal councils and municipal corporations in urban and rural areas scheduled from next month to February ’07.

She said the party high command had left it to the district Congress committees (DCCs) to decide whether to fight the polls in an alliance or go it alone. “We have allowed the DCCs to decide. Many of them feel we should go it alone,” she said.

Queried about the up-and-down phase in the alliance — beginning with the open spat between the NCP and the Congress during the Maharashtra Vidan Sabha elections — and its implication on the present situation, Ms Alva said: “There is no problem at all. There is no alliance at the local election level anyway. We are allies at the assembly level”.

When asked if the Congress’ decision would jeopardise the alliance in anyway, Ms Alva said: “They (the NCP) had also defeated our candidate in the Rajya Sabha election. Why did anyone not question them about the state of the alliance then?”