Pawar, Praful skip Cabinet meet Posers raised over UPA
Source: The Sangai Express / Agencies
New Delhi, July 19 2012:
Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and his deputy, Praful Patel, skipped a Cabinet meeting this evening to convey their displeasure to the Congress.
A top source in their party, the Nationalist Congress Party or NCP, said "The Congress does not know how to run a coalition government." The NCP is a member of the UPA, the ruling coalition run by the Congress.
Sharad Pawar has been upset with the fact that after Pranab Mukheree resigned from the Cabinet Defence Minister AK Antony has been seated next to the Prime Minister at Cabinet meetings, reserved for the second-most senior member of the Government.
Sources in the NCP said that their leaders are upset that the Congress did not bother to inform Sharad Pawar about the new seating arrangement after Pranab Mukherjee's exit.
For two Cabinet meetings, there have been four Cabinet meetings since then.
For the first two, Sharad Pawar sat next to the PM.
But then the seating plan pointedly placed AK Antony by the PM's side.
That has offended Sharad Pawar and his party.
Sources in the NCP said that it's not about who is perceived as or treated as No 2 in the Cabinet, but about the Congress not offering a partner the courtesy of the new arrangement.
Allegedly as a sign of protest, they also did not attend the UPA session called to announce Hamid Ansari as the coalition's candidate for Vice-President.
Sharad Pawar, however, made it clear that his party supports Hamid Ansari's nomination.
However, they were present at Sonia Gandhi's lunch, held yesterday for all MPs from the UPA and supporting parties like Mulayam Singh Yadav's SP.
Mamata Banerjee and the DMK, all important members of the UPA, have in the past blamed the Congress for poor coordination and for taking its partners for granted.