New Delhi: NCP has decided to pull out of the UPA government and support it from outside in protest against the way the party was treated by Congress, creating fresh trouble for the ruling coalition.
Party supremo Sharad Pawar, Minister for Agriculture, and the only other representative in the Union Cabinet, Praful Patel, Minister for Heavy Industry, have informed Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh that they are tendering their resignation.
In a separate communication to UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Pawar has said NCP, which has nine members in the Lok Sabha and seven in the Rajya Sabha, will stay part of the UPA.
Despite these missives from NCP sent on Thursday, the Congress leadership was continuing to make efforts to retain the party in the coalition government.
The Congress Core Group including Gandhi, Dr Singh and senior Ministers, met here on Friday evening after which party sources claimed the crisis was being defused.
Congress sources claimed the NCP issue was discussed and ‘all matters stand settled’. The issue is not about Pawar being number two in the Cabinet but about coordination, the sources said.
NCP has been a stable ally of Congress for the last eight years.
In separate letters to the PM and Gandhi, the NCP chief said the party would like to keep out of the government and focus on its growth since it was small and elections were approaching.
Dr Singh called him immediately for a discussion which was followed by a meeting with Gandhi on Friday morning. During the discussion, Pawar raised issues of lack of coordination and consultation by Congress with allies and governance issues like excess food subsidy at the cost of funding for water projects. Pawar also pleaded that the government should not go for excessively populist schemes at the cost of economy. (PTI)
