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21 MLAs form group to
keep Cong, NCP in check

The group, led by former minister of state for agriculture Harshvardhan Patil, who was recently elected to the Upper House, said that smaller partners in the DF government have been neglected in decision-making. ''We are demanding an equal share in decision-making. We have no intention of toppling the government.''

The group includes five members of the Peasants and Workers Party, two from the Janata Dal-S, two from the Samajwadi Party, two members of the Communist Party of India-Marxist and 10 Independents led by Patil. Two members of the Upper House, PWP member Jayant Patil and Janata Dal member Gangadhar Patne are also part of the group.

JD-S members Ganpatrao Deshmukh and SP legislator Nawab Malik, Meenakshi Patil, Mohan Patil (PWP) are all part of the 55-member cabinet led by Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.

These members have been complaining that they have been neglected in decision-making. They are also sore over non-representation in state-owned corporations and boards.

Similarly, they complained that repeated pleas to the government to take effective steps about load-shedding in rural areas have gone unheeded.

Their main grouse is that the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party, the major coalition partners, are running the government as if they are in an absolute majority and ignoring their contribution to forming the coalition following a fractured verdict in the last assembly elections.

Deshmukh has decided to convene a co-ordination committee meeting of coalition partners once in every two months. He said it was impossible to consult each and every ally before taking any decision. According to him, his government had fulfilled almost 60 per cent of the common minimum programme.

He also ruled out any threat to his government. All parties have come together on a common ideology of secularism and to keep away the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance from power, while ''some allies had every chance to go with the saffron alliance ever since election results were announced. But they preferred to come with the Congress because of their belief in secularism,'' Deshmukh said.

UNI

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