Cong rallies to keep the heat on alliance Govt

The Maharashtra Pradesh Youth Congress will follow up with similardharnas in all districts on September 1 in order to keep the issue alive while senior leaders of the party ruminate on the feasibility of following the Samajwadi Party to the Bombay High Court on a public interest litigation.

Conscious of the fact that they are under criticism for having been soft on the Sena and its chief Bal Thackeray throughout the latter’s growth and rise to power in the State, the Congress now appears eager to speed up the Sena-Thackeray decline without seeming to demand the measures that it failed to take while in office in the years before the Sena-BJP seized the reins.

Hence the study committee headed by Ramrao Adik, former minister for Law, which went through the Commission’s report with a fine-tooth comb has recommended to MPCC president Prataprao Bhosale that there is ample ground for criminal cases to be filed against Thackeray, Chief Minister Manohar Joshi, Minister of State for Home Gajanan Kirtikar, member of Parliament Madhukar Sarpotdar and others in the Sena whohad egged people on to violence.

Sources in the MPCC told The Indian Express that the legal eagles within the party believe that there is a cast iron case to be made out against the Sena while the only Congress leader pulled up by Justice Srikrishna — then chief minister Sudhakarrao Naik — has received not an indictment but a reprimand for certain lapses and could hope to get away with a few more raps on the knuckles.

He is already facing a PIL filed by some human interest groups last week.

On firm ground, thus, the Congress is also exploring the possibility of moving the judiciary though the leaders are under pressure from a section of their own partymen not to precipitate matters in a manner that might damage the Congress’s chances at the hustings at the next Assembly elections.

In case the MPCC goes in for a PIL, it might not be able to turn a deaf ear to increasingly strident pleas to ensure that the petition remains “buried” under red tape for as long as possible. “Do nothing thatwill keep us out of the Assembly for another five years,” workers have pleaded with party leaders.

Having switched to combat mode, though, the Congress is giving the Sena-BJP no breather. Adik, who addressed the Seva Dal demonstrations in Thane, was the first of Congressmen to directly charge the Sena-BJP alliance with “shameless corruption”.

Mincing few words in his criticism of the government’s slum rehabilitation scheme, Adik said there had been misappropriation of crores of rupees by the Sena-BJP alliance.

He was also categorical in describing the patch-up meeting between the two allies last week — after a very public fight between BJP city unit president Kirit Somaiyya and Housing Minister Suresh Jain — as not a diljamai (meeting of hearts), so described by Thackeray but “a meeting for striking a give and take deal”. Dayama meanwhile said the Seva Dal would continue with its street demonstrations at more localised levels in the blocks and taluka towns. “We will not give upuntil and unless the Sena-BJP government is forced out of office,” he added.