NCP waits Congress to drop tainted ministers first

The Congress and NCP are engaged in a cold war on who should make the first move to drop the tainted ministers from the Maharashtra cabinet. The NCP top brass has decided to first watch the Congress strategy on whether they sack ministers involved in coalgate.  

Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan has refrained from taking the extreme step of dropping school education minister Rajendra Darda as NCP is reluctant to take any action against the ministers embroiled in a series of financial irregularities in the state
Chavan, according to sources, is also closely monitoring the developments at the Centre. A senior AICC general secretary said, “Chavan is likely to follow the Centre’s footsteps. If Manmohan Singh gets the nod from Sonia Gandhi to drop Union ministers Subodh Kant Sahay and Shri Prakash Jaiswal, the state may have to take a similar decision here.”

But the larger issue is that Chavan may not be able to dictate the same terms with NCP which has three top ministers facing the stigma of corruption. State NCP chief Madhukar Picchad maintained: “If the charges of wrongdoings are proved in the court, the party will adhere to the verdict and take action.”

However, the NCP top leadership has decided against taking hasty action against ministers whose names are emerging in matters related to financial irregularities.

Whether it is minister for public works department Chhagan Bhujbal, water resources minister Sunil Tatkare or state transport minister Gulabrao Deokar, all have been asked to make their position clear on charges against them. But NCP believes that unless it is legally upheld, there is no question of bowing down to opposition pressure.

The NCP discussed how the CAG report is being used to declare individual ministers as criminals. Ideally, CAG findings should first be placed before the committee which then ascertains the facts and allows the department concerned to make its submissions.