Top leaders of the ruling Congress-NCP combine in Maharashtra are engaged in a full-blown verbal slug-fest.
Top leaders of the ruling Congress-NCP combine in Maharashtra are engaged in a full-blown verbal slug-fest, amid the campaigning for local bodies polls this month.
Irked over NCP wooing his former associate Shankar Kambli, senior Congress minister in Maharashtra, Narayan Rane, launched a scathing attack on Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar of NCP yesterday.
Kambli's entry came close on the heels of induction of another Congress leader and former legislator, Pushpasen Sawant, into NCP. Kambli, who left Shiv Sena along with Rane in 2005, had followed Rane into Congress.
Speaking at a public meeting in Kudal, Rane said Ajit Pawar and home minister R R Patil criticised him during the cabinet meetings.
"I am not bothered about Ajit Pawar's threats," Rane said, calling him "a faulty tape recorder".
Ajit Pawar responded today, saying Rane had lost his "balance". "I don't give importance to his rambling. He has lost his balance," he said.
Speaking to reporters in Latur, RR Patil also lambasted Rane, saying the Congress minister was "frustrated" due to the public support for NCP on his hometurf, the coastal Konkan.
"He cited crime figures in Sangli and Pune (Pawar is from Pune while Patil is from Sangli district). I want to point out that at least in Sangli, there is no minister accused of murder," Patil said.
The rivalry between Rane and NCP is not new. In 2002, when Rane was in Shiv Sena, NCP workers had staged violent protests in Kankavli, his hometown in Sindhudurg district, after the murder local NCP leader Vijay Bhise.
An angry NCP mob had burned down the palatial bungalow of Rane, who was then the leader of Opposition in the Assembly.
Bhise's was the second political murder in the area. Sridhar Naik, Congress candidate against Rane in the Assembly election, had been murdered earlier.
Rane suffered a setback in the recently concluded municipal council elections in the region, where NCP won three councils.
Poaching of Kambli is in line with NCP's aggressive expansion strategy for the upcoming civic elections.
Rane has been hitting out at Ajit Pawar in his speeches, and recently even put up posters saying he would "disrobe" the NCP during the upcoming election.
NCP has already managed to establish a stronghold in Konkan. In the Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg coastal belt, of the existing 7 assembly seats, NCP won 3 last time, and hopes to better the tally in 2014 polls.
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