State Congress puts up show of solidarity

MUMBAI: Having been snubbed by party president Sonia Gandhi, the faction-ridden Maharashtra Congress made a show of solidarity on Thursday. A couple of days after Ms Gandhi asked chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and state Congress president Prabha Rau to patch up, the Congress on Thursday held a sort of get-together of all ‘camps’, where Mr Deshmukh and Ms Rau claimed there were no differences.

“There are no differences between us. Party workers should start preparing for elections to municipal bodies,” was all Mr Deshmukh said after the day-long meeting, while Ms Rau sat smiling beside her bete noire.

Ironically, while leader after leader including Mr Deshmukh, Ms Rau, and CM-aspirant Narayan Rane made grand claims about unity, one Mr Shinde, a party worker from Nashik, stood up to say, “You all are making claims about solidarity but what about reports in the media which point out serious differences between you? This creates confusion among grass-root workers.” His note of dissent was drowned in the ensuing noise, Mr Shinde was immediately whisked away.

Meanwhile, Congress sources pointed out that the ceasefire between the chief minister and the state unit president could be a temporary posture. “They have come together only because Ms Gandhi has asked them to. This does not mean that the differences between them have been sorted out,” a party functionary told ET.

For the time being though, the public picture of bonhomie between the chief minister and state Congress president has given rise to speculation about the long-pending reshuffle in the state cabinet and appointments to the state-run corporations.

In fact, delay on these two issues has been the main grouse nursed by Ms Rau against Mr Deshmukh. Speculation over cabinet reshuffle is relatively recent but appointments to more than 55 state-run corporations have been pending since the Democratic Front (DF) came to power in mid-’04.

“Party MLAs who have lost out on the chance to be in the cabinet aspire for getting appointed to some corporation. There is also a valid expectation that ministers’ performance would be reviewed after the government has completed more than two years in office. But there has not been anything of this sort,” an official said.

After Ms Gandhi’s intervention, a review of the performance of ministers is on cards, sources said. “Some non-performing ministers will have to make way for others,” a source said.