The Hindu : New political alignment likely in Maharashtra

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 03, 2004

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National

New political alignment likely in Maharashtra

By Mahesh Vijapurkar

MUMBAI, FEB. 2. Some political parties in Maharashtra that had allied with the Nationalist Congress Party in the 1999 Lok Sabha elections have decided to form a separate alliance which would oppose the Congress-NCP and the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance in the coming elections.

These parties, subsequent to the last Assembly elections, had joined the NCP-Congress coalition Government.

The reason for this "friends-turning-foes" approach, says N.D. Patil of the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP), is that the new alignment would like to fight the liberalisation policies of the Congress-NCP as well as the Sena-BJP combine's communal politics.

However, sources say that these parties may have decided to come together to leverage a better share in the elections to the Lok Sabha and the State Assembly to be held this year, either simultaneously or within a few months of each other. A steering committee, formed with Prof. Patil as head, is to evolve a sharper policy framework in the next few days.

The ongoing talks between the NCP and the Congress have taken into account the fact that the NCP's former allies, including the Republican Party of India's various factions, the PWP and the Janata Dal (Secular), would have their share of seats clubbed with the NCP, which would apportion them appropriately.

In the past few years, the PWP, the Janata Dal (United) and the Samajwadi Party broke away from the ruling coalition and the SP, in fact, found itself so fractured that most of its MLAs joined the NCP.

At one point of time, these smaller parties had turned so hostile to many policies of the coalition that they openly opposed its policies till they remained in the alliance only to "keep the Sena-BJP out of power."

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