Just a couple of days after the UPA celebrated its ninth anniversary with much fanfare, its current largest alliance partner NCP on Friday upped the ante yet again over the need for immediately convening the coalition’s Coordination Committee meeting to discuss issues of urgency.
Expressing its dissatisfaction over the UPA’s treatment to coalition partners and in view of the Assembly polls scheduled later this year, the nine MP strong NCP also wants the Congress to finalise seat sharing arrangement in four States — Delhi, Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh. The party not only wants a course correction but also favours early lok Sabha polls by the end of the year along with four States.
It was just a year ago that the NCP had put the Congress on notice for setting up the Coordination Committee by threatening to pull out of the UPA, but the committee has met only thrice so far, indicating the Congress’s reluctance to keep allies in the loop over major decisions.
NCP general secretary DP Tripathi said that though the UPA Government had achieved a lot in terms of economic growth during the past four years, the party appeals to the coalition Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to immediately call the Coordination Committee meeting to interact and formulate a strategy to deal with future political challenges. He wanted the Committee to finalize seat sharing between various allies based on their strength in various States.
The NCP realises that the Congress, which has already lost two major allies Trinamool and DMK, cannot afford to annoy it.
So it is putting pressure on it to agree to give at least five seats in Delhi, three to four in MP, four to five in Chhattisgarh and five to seven seats to contest in Rajasthan Assembly polls. It also wants a larger chunk of seats in Maharashtra lok Sabha polls by highlighting that the party has greater hold in rural areas as was evident from the local bodies’ elections earlier.
Regarding the possibility of early elections, Tripathi said that NCP president Sharad Pawar has already stated that in a democracy all parties should be ready for election any time. Moreover, with Trinamool Congress and DMK leaving the UPA, the possibility of earlier elections is more, he said.
According to NCP sources, it will be beneficial for the UPA to go for lok Sabha elections in November-December 2013 along with Assembly polls in four States to take maximum advantage of the division within the BJP over the Prime Ministerial candidate’s choice and before the Opposition could consolidate its position after a possible favourable Assembly polls results.
“It will be unadulterated political stupidity” if the lok Sabha polls are delayed further and held in April-May 2014, sources said.
Tripathi also justified Union Minister Praful Patel’s demand for the UPA’s course correction and said that it was necessary for proper functioning of the coalition. This reassertion has clearly indicated that all is not well between the coalition partners.
Earlier, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar had even put hurdles in Sonia’s dream project, the Food Security Bill, by making it clear that his party would not support its passage without discussion in Parliament and had even consulted Opposition leaders on this issue.
However, on the issue of the UPA’s Prime Ministerial candidate, Tripathi adopted a cautious approach saying that Manmohan Singh is the PM and after Sonia reaffirmed faith in him recently, there was no doubt on the issue. Moreover, till the time Congress changes the leadership, Singh will remain the PM, he added.