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39 Congress MLAs, 14MLCs attend Pawar meeting

The Congress party today suffered a major setback in Maharashtra as 39 members of the legislative assembly decided to go with Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party while another 14 members of the legislative council attended a meeting called by his supporters.

Madhukar Pichad and Chhagan Bhujbal, expelled leaders of the Congress in the legislative assembly and council, respectively, had called the meetings.

Thus, the strength of the Congress party in the Maharashtra assembly has been reduced from 77 to 38 MLAs. The total strength of the house is 288.

In the Upper House, the party now has 12 MLCs left.

The show of strength by Pawar will come as a big setback to the Congress party as it was not expecting so many MLAs and MLCs to opt for him.

Actually, they were happy that only five of 33 Congress Members of Parliament had quit the party to join Pawar after he was expelled. They were expecting the same kind of feeble support for him from the assembly and council members too.

But Pawar has proved his opponents wrong and shown he is still a force to reckon with in Maharashtra.

Pawar's clout was underestimated when many of his supporters, including former state party president Ranjit Deshmukh, didn't leave the Congress on his expulsion.

Thus the elections in Maharashtra will be a three-way contest among the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance, the Nationalist Congress Party, and the Indian National Congress.

The names of the MLAs and MLCs who opted for Pawar have not been revealed to the press. But prominent among them are Padamsinh Patil, Digvijay Khanvilkar, Balasaheb Khopekar and Shankar Kolhe.

Interestingly, Pawar, who had earlier come to Chhagan Bhujbal's residence in Bombay, did not attend the meeting of the rebel MLAs.

The meeting lasted about 90 minutes and the participants unanimously decided that no person of foreign origin should occupy the positions of President, vice-president or prime minister of India.

They also decided that Pichad would be their leader in the assembly and Bhujbal in the council.

The meeting, which was supposed to begin at 1300 IST, was delayed by an hour. This led to some confusion and apprehension among Pawar's supporters as to how many MLAs and MLCs would join them.

It was at the same time that Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Pratap Bhosle had called a meeting of all the MLAs and MLCs of the party at Tilak Bhavan, the party's state headquarters.

Congress Working Committee member Ghulam Nabi Azad had flown in from Delhi to attend the meeting.

Speaking to reporters after the rebels' meeting, Pichad said, "More than 50 per cent of MLAs and MLCs have supported us and the figure will rise to nearly 80 per cent by June 3."

Bhujbal said seven more MLAs had phoned him and sent letters, but were unable to attend the meeting.

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