Union Home Minister P Chidambaram has issued a double-edged whammy to alliance partner Sharad Pawar.
He has said it will be "good" if he did not attend the Third Front rally comprising parties who are against the Congress and informed him there was no vacancy for the post of Prime Minister.
The Congress has not taken too kindly to NCP leader Sharad Pawar's ongoing flirtations with the Third Front and his attempt to keep a window open with the newly formed alliance in the event that the UPA does not finish past the winning post.
In a warning, politely couched in civil language, the Union Home Minister P.Chidambaram has attacked the Maratha strongman for his decision to address a rally in Bhuvaneshwar on Friday which will be attended by Left front leaders and Navin Patnaik.
"It will be good if he did not share a platform with parties in the Third Front who are opposed to the Congress", said P.Chidambaram. He said that Sharad Pawar has an alliance with the Congress in Maharashtra and a likely alliance in Gujarat and Goa, but has no alliance in Orissa.
This line of thinking was echoed by the newly appointed chairman of the AICC media Department Janardhan Dwivedi, a long-time advocate of the thinking that the Congress would need to abjure alliances and stand on its own feet if it is to capture its lost political space in numerous states.
Reacting to Pawar's decision to join the Third Front rally, Dwivedi said, "The party has already clarified its position earlier that there would be no alliances with any party at the national level but only at the state level. As far as Pawar is concerned and whatever he is doing in Orissa, it is for him to think whether it is correct ethically and morally".
Dwivedi went on to say, "The Congress values its relationship with its alliance partners but that does not mean that we will compromise with our ideology and policies".
Janardhan Dwivedi was not mincing any words when he warned Pawar that "he would be responsible for the consequences of his actions".
On the issue of prime ministership, Chidambaram said that Congress president Sonia Gandhi had categorically declared that Dr Manmohan Singh would be the candidate for the Prime Ministership. "That is now a fact and all political parties would need to make their choices around that fact". He said that the alliance partners would need to accept Dr Manmohan Singh as the prime minister, in what was a direct allusion to Pawar's continuing campaign to become the Prime Minister in the post-2009 electoral scene.
There is heartburning in the Congress at the manner in which Sharad Pawar has been blowing hot-blowing cold with the Congress the issue of alliances and prime ministership.
A senior leader said that Pawar has not resigned from his ministership, and while continuing to be a minister in the Dr Manmohan Singh-led government he is all set to share a platform with parties like the BJD, the TDP and others whose raison d'etre is anti-congressism. This has not gone down well with party leaders.
The comparison is with the PMK which has tied up with the AIADMK front but its ministers have resigned from the Union cabinet. Lalu Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan, on the other hand, have not resigned but they have not aligned themselves with any front which is against the Congress.
Pawar now sits in a separate category from these two set of parties.
A senior Congress leader who is said to be familiar with the thinking of 10, Janpath has conceded that there is a sea change in the thinking of the leadership over its handling of difficult or tantrum throwing alliance partners. He said that the allies should be prepared for a Congress retaliation if they attack the Congress. Earlier the thinking was that in the interest of keeping the government and the allies in good humour, the party held its peace on a number of occasions.
"But now we are clear we need to worry about the party without worrying about whether we are coming to power or not. We will not allow our workers to be either beaten or browbeaten", said a senior AICC functionary. But he made it clear that since the Congress is heading the UPA, it will not take the lead in attacking its allies but
would not hesitate to retaliate if pushed to the wall.
While Lalu Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan are too obvious to be mentioned in this context, the writing on the wall as far as Sharad Pawar is concerned is that the alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party is on its last legs, irrespective of whether the Congress comes to power at the Centre or does not.
With huge opposition from its rank and file to the politics of Sharad Pawar in Maharashtra, a senior leader conceded that it should not come as a surprise to anyone if the Congress fails to tie up with the NCP for the Assembly elections in the state to be held later this year.
