The Hindu : National : Pawar, Deshmukh cross swords

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Nov 19, 2004

National

National

Pawar, Deshmukh cross swords

By Our Special Correspondent

MUMBAI, NOV. 18. The Nationalist Congress Party elected today former Maharashtra Assembly speaker, Arun Gujarathi, as its State unit president even as the party leader and Union Agriculture Minister, Sharad Pawar, crossed swords with the Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh.

Mr. Pawar took exception to Mr. Deshmukh telling a television channel yesterday that the NCP was a regional party and the Congress was a national party with 118 years history and therefore time would tell who would merge with whom. Mr. Deshmukh had also noted that the ground on which the NCP had split from the Congress was no longer there.

Mr. Pawar said at the State party general body meeting that his party was like a small cottage and it did not have the status of an estate that the Deshmukhs used to have in old times.

"Ours is a small plant but it is growing unlike your huge banyan tree that is getting slashed and you have to say such things to please your superiors," he said.

The election of Mr. Gujarathi, who could not get re-elected from his Chopada constituency in north Maharashtra, is seen as Mr. Pawar's attempt to give his party a non-Maratha face. He succeeds R.R. Patil, a Maratha, who is now heading the NCP's Government wing as the Deputy Chief Minister.

Mr. Pawar indicated that though his party was sharing power with the Congress in Maharashtra, it was not a permanent arrangement. "We will have to assume an altogether different role in two-and-a-half years," he told the gathering of the party's State and district functionaries besides the elected representatives.

He called upon the party functionaries to motivate the workers, particularly where the NCP lost.

The party chief prescribed a code of conduct for all, particularly the ministers. The ministers should visit other districts as well and not air views that are not in conformity with the party's official line and ideology.

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