The Congress is at it again. In a virtual repeat performance of the manner in which the on-today-off-again alliance with the Samajwadi Party was finished off, Congress leaders are playing the same tactics in Maharashtra where elections are just around the corner.
All India Congress Committee functionary Satyavrat Chaturvedi had then attacked Amar Singh saying he had lost his mental balance and much else. Now, Chaturvedi has Nationalist Congress Party chief and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on his firing line. The Congress has an alliance with Pawar's party both at the Centre and the state.
Speaking at a function organised by the national alliance for farmers' association, Chaturvedi attacked Pawar and held him responsible for the current problems facing the country.
He said when farmers were crying from the rooftops that there was drought in the country Pawar continued to insist that there was no problem and that everything was normal. He said it was much later that Pawar admitted there was a drought and that the rains had failed.
Shifting to the Minimum Support Price for sugar cane, Chaturvedi said they had repeatedly asked him to increase the MSP but unlike the case of 'gehoon and dhan' (foodgrain) this had not happened for sugar cane. As a result, the prices of sugar shot up but the Krishi mantra continued to insist that they had huge stocks and that there was simply no shortage and no problem, he said.
"Toh hamne krishi mantri se kaha ki agar aisi baat hai to phir aap aapne stock mein se chini nikaliye takey keemat kaam ho, (So we told the Agriculture Minister that if that is the case, why don't you take out sugar from your stock so that at least the prices come down" he said. But then, Chaturvedi said, instead of bringing out the stocks, Pawar now indicates there could be a shortage and that they would need to import sugar.
The Congress leader said that questions were being asked in the party, the government and Parliament and that is why the Congress president called a meeting of the Congress Working Committee, the highest decision making body of the party, to discuss the drought, find out the actual reasons for it and what steps could be taken to bring down the farmers' suffering. He said the meeting went on for four-and-a-half hours.
The statement has not gone down too well with the NCP leadership.
While Pawar refused to react saying his party will comment, NCP spokesman D P Tripathi has sought disciplinary action against Chaturvedi saying that his statement was made to defame the United Progressive Alliance government and show the functioning of the government in a bad light.
It may be recalled that the Samajwadi Party had also asked for disciplinary action against Chaturvedi when he spoke against Amar Singh but after repeated threats by the SP, and personal intervention by the prime minister, the party moved to remove him as spokesman but he continued to function in the AICC as an office bearer.
Within the Congress, while party leaders have expressed surprise at the utterances of Chaturvedi on the eve of the Maharashtra elections where the two parties are negotiating seat sharing, a senior leader said that as in the case of Amar Singh, here too the utterances are deliberate with a two fold motive.
The first he said is to keep the NCP under pressure and the second is that by raising the issue of MSP for sugar cane and the ex-factory price for Sugar the Congress would like to take the credit as both the matters are coming up in the cabinet meeting to be held on Thursday.
The cabinet is likely to increase the MSP of sugar as well as well as increase the ex-factory price of sugar keeping in mind the Maharashtra elections and the huge sugar lobby in the state.
It is interesting that just a few days back, AICC leader Digvijay Singh who is partly monitoring Maharashtra and is in the co-ordination committee set up for the state, also took pot shots at Pawar asking him to merge his party with the Congress as his raison for forming the NCP had creased to exist. There are clear indications that the Congress is all set to drive a hard bargain as it did in UP.
But the two situations are not the same. In UP the Congress had no alliance with the SP and had nothing to loose, as Digvijay Singh was so fond of saying. But in Maharashtra, the Congress has a government with the NCP in the state and has the support of the NCP at the Centre also. But despite that the pinpricks are on.
The most interesting comment on the entire episode came from a senior Maharashtra leader who said that he saw shades of what happened in UP being repeated in Maharashtra!
