Sena Says It Has Rahul Gandhi's Back, Ally Sharad Pawar Circumspect
NDTV
Rahul Gandhi's Congress co-parents the Maharashtra government with the Sena and Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party or NCP.
If the day began with Rahul Gandhi getting a fist bump from the Shiv Sena, it ended with another ally, Sharad Pawar's party, glowering firmly.
Mr Gandhi's Congress co-parents the Maharashtra government with the Sena and Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party or NCP. The alliance is 23 years old; within it, divergent approaches are common if not threatening. Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister of West Bengal, has delivered a star turn at trying to alter that.
Five days ago, Ms Banerjee visited Mumbai to meet with Mr Pawar; because Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray was unavailable, his son and minister Aaditya Thackeray met with Ms Banerjee as she petitioned for an anti-BJP alliance that is not hinged on the Congress.
Ms Banerjee's aspiration to fashion herself as the centre of this Opposition league has grown after she whacked the BJP with one of its most resounding defeats ever in Bengal earlier this year; in recent months, she has dismissed the Congress as too weak to carry the weight of an entire slew of Opposition parties. "What is the UPA? There is no UPA," she declared after meeting with Mr Pawar in Mumbai, declaring the once-powerful Congress-led national alliance, of which she was a member, as extinct. Mr Pawar had on that occasion remarked, "Congress had to be part of any anti-BJP alliance".
