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The crisis facing the Democratic Front government in Maharashtra is a direct result of the fight for supremacy between two of its constituents in Raigad district.
The district is a stronghold of the Peasants and Workers Party (PWP), which has five MLAs in the current assembly.
Among others, another DF constituent - the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) - also wanted to develop a support base in the district.
Sunil Tatkare was the man in charge of this task. A supporter of former chief minister A R Antulay, Tatkare joined hands with Sharad Pawar when the latter split the Congress in 1999 to form the NCP.
Tatkare went about his task with due diligence. The real test came during the elections to the Raigad Zilla Parishad held in February-March last.
The elections were fought either on a party basis or by forming local alliances.
The latter served as an ideal camouflage for the anti-PWP parties to forge purely opportunistic alliances with the aim of defeating the PWP.
Despite this, the PWP emerged as the single largest party.
But the turning point came at the time of the elections to the post of president of the Raigad Zilla Parishad.
The PWP's Jayant Patil had fielded his wife Supriya Patil for the post. Being part of the DF, it expected the NCP and the Congress to support its nominee.
However, this was not to be.
Enraged, PWP supporters locked up Tatkare and Congress leader Mushtaq Antulay in the former's hotel room in Raigad.
Without the support of the these two parties, the PWP lost the president's post to the Shiv Sena, which did not even have the requisite numbers.
An enraged PWP demanded Tatkare's ouster from the DF ministry, which the NCP conceded after much am-twisting.
But when an internal inquiry found Tatkare not guilty of engineering the PWP's defeat, the NCP decided to re-induct him into the ministry risking a confrontation with the PWP.
Also, being a major constituent of the DF, the NCP was did not want to be held to ransom by a five-MLA party.
However, the plan backfired when the PWP's decision to withdraw support to the DF government prompted other constituents also to do the same.
The Crisis in Maharashtra: The Complete Coverage
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