Mumbai, March 4: The storm is yet to blow over for beleaguered Chief Minister Manohar Joshi. Although Sena chief Bal Thackeray rejected the Chief Minister's resignation on Tuesday, a section of senior party leaders are now pressurising the supremo to accept his resignation and find a successor.``As a gesture, Thackeray might have rejected his resignation, but we feel that he should immediately initiate steps to find a successor to Joshi. We will put forth our views on the outcome of the parliamentary elections before Thackeray when he convenes a meeting to take stock of the political situation next week,'' a senior Sena leader told The Indian Express.In fact, the Chief Minister, who was unable to ensure the victory of the party nominee in his hometown, has no moral right to continue in office. ``In North-Central parliamentary constituency, of which Dadar, from where Joshi has been elected to the assembly, party nominee Narayan Athavale lost to RPI candidate Ramdas Athavale by a huge margin. Wefeel that Joshi should take it as a personal defeat and quit office,'' another Sena leader observed.By and large, senior Sena leaders pointed out that notwithstanding the massive campaign undertaken by Thackeray, the party was unable to make it to the hustings owing to the poor performance of the alliance government.``After three years in office, we have not been able to show a single visible scheme to the electorate in Maharashtra. Whether it is the mass housing scheme for slum-dwellers or the Zhunka Bhakar scheme for the much ambitious programme to provide employment to 27 lakh jobless youths, all these schemes have proved to be non-starters. Particularly for the rural areas, we were unable to draft a comprehensive scheme'' another Sena leader added.Secondly, both Joshi and Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde did not take cognisance of the alliance of Republican Party of India and Samajwadi Party with the Congress and the Maratha factor while drafting strategy for mid-term polls.``Apparently,they came to the conclusion that the Congress-RPI-SP combine will not be able to make any positive impact on the electorate. All along, Munde was busy in engineering defections from the Congress into the BJP. Politicians like Pratapsinh Mohite Patil from Kolhapur, Dina Bama Patil and Ashok Ambedkar joined the BJP, but now it is clear that they were of little help to the alliance,'' the Sena leader added.Referring to the Maratha factor, the Sena leader said though they constitute more than 40 per cent of the population, the politicians at the helm of affairs not only ignored them, but created such a situation that they they felt they were unwanted in the Sena-BJP rule. ``Currently, all top posts, whether in Mantralaya, police department or district administration are held by non-Marathas. During the erstwhile Congress rule, key posts were occupied by officials belonging to the Maratha community,'' the Sena leader remarked.The result was that owing to indifferent attitude of the alliance government,officials of the Maratha community took least interest in the affairs of the government. ``We feel that it was a major setback since even in the administration, their strength is more than 40 per cent,'' the Sena leader added.Congress campaigner Sharad Pawar on the other hand took full advantage of the situation. During his campaign, particularly in rural parts, he explained to small groups as to how the alliance government was ill-treating the Marathas.About all, the alliance government was at the receiving end over the issue of corruption and intra-party disputes. When the alliance government came to power, the electorate, particularly in rural parts, were expecting miracles from it. They felt that now corruption will be completely wiped out.However, the ground realities were completely difference. Now, they had to pay more money as corruption had reached all levels, right from the Talathi in a village to top officials at the district, divisional and state level.So far the intra-party disputeswere concerned, a senior Sena Minister said the organisational structure in the Shiv Sena is different compared to other political parties. ``We have shakha and vibhag pramukh and sampark neta (contact leaders) for the districts, I feel that these sampark leaders created major trouble for the party workers at the grassroot level. Instead of working for the party nominees, our workers had to work more for these netas,'' the Sena minister added.However, supporters of Joshi felt that Thackeray will not dare to replace him. ``Even if he decides to replace, there is no competent leader to replace him,'' a pro-Joshi Minister said.
