Chavan says home should be with Cong, NCP irked

The Nationalist Congress Party took strong exception to Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan's view that the state home minister should have been from the Congress and not from the Sharad Pawar-led party.

"Congress can just tell us that they don't want an alliance instead of making such statements. We can go on our own," a television channel quoted NCP state unit president Madhukar Pichad as saying.

NCP spokesperson Madan Bafna, however, told PTI that the chief minister has clarified that he had full faith in Home Minister R R Patil, who is from NCP.

"The CM has said that Congress-NCP government has been running smoothly since 1999 and that there is no difference between the two parties," Bafna, a former minister, said. "We don't have anything further to say after the CM's clarification," he added.

Chavan had told a TV channel in Mumbai on Friday that Congress agreeing to give the key home portfolio to NCP was a "mistake".

"I think it was a mistake. We should have re-looked at it. I don't know of any other coalition government where the portfolios of home, finance and planning are not with the chief minister," Chavan had said.