Castigating the Congress for not consulting United Progressive Alliance partners before forging an alliance with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha for Jharkhand assembly elections, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar on Monday threatened that the UPA allies would isolate the Congress during the polls.
"If the Congress does not change its approach towards the alliance partners in the UPA government, then we [Rashtriya Janata Dal, Communist Party of India, Communist Party of Indian (Marxist) and the NCP] will have no other choice but to contest the coming Assembly elections in Bihar, Jharkhand and Haryana sans it," Pawar said in Mumbai.
"It is unfortunate that the Congress has taken a decision of contesting the elections in alliance with the JMM without even consulting allies in the UPA government," he said.
As per the electoral understanding between the Congress and the JMM for next month's polls, JMM would contest 35 seats and the Congress 33.
The NCP chief, who is also the Union Agriculture Minister, pointed out that the Congress had only 145 of the 300 members of the UPA.
He also did not find anything wrong with the ruckus created by RJD chief Lalu Prasad over the Congress-JMM agreement. Pawar said, "Everyone fought the Lok Sabha elections together and the contribution of the RJD was substantial and cannot be neglected."