PM removes
names of own Cabinet Ministers from his website
A big
political crisis has engulfed the UPA today with Nationalist Congress Party leaders
Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel boycotting its meeting this evening at the Prime
Minister’s residence to chose Vice Presidential candidate.
The boycott
of the NCP leaders shocked political circles as Pawar had lately being
considered as the new trouble-shooter of the UPA after Pranab Mukherjee’s
elevation as Presidential candidate.
Agriculture
Minister Sharad Pawar and Heavy Industries Minister Praful Patel stay put in
Mumbai today. Efforts to contact Sharad Pawar yielded no results. But Praful
Patel confirmed that he did not attend the meeting due to “pre-occupation.” When asked why Pawar did not attend, he
declined to say anything.
Sources say
that Pawar is extremely unhappy with the UPA leadership over the question of
who should be Number two in the government. While his name appeared immediately
after the Prime Minister’s name in the official website of the PMO after Pranab
Mukherjee demitted office on June 26 as Finance Minister, later Defence
Minister A K Antony set next to the PM at the Cabinet meeting.
Suddenly,
the list of Cabinet Ministers vanished from the PM’s own website. “The PM
himself removed the list from his website of Cabinet Ministers. Surely, he may
be re-assessing the order in which names are to be listed,” said a senior
minister close to the developments.
But the
crisis is far from over. While the boycott of Pawar is understood to be not
linked to the issue of Dr Hamid Ansari being given the second term.
The crisis
is really bigger for the UPA on the issue of hierarchy.
