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Journalism of Courage
For the moment both the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party NCP seem to have climbed down from suicide point. The Maharashtra state unit of the Congress now claims that it had never issued an ultimatum to the NCP president, Sharad Pawar, over his statements on Sonia Gandhi8217;s foreign origins, and the NCP has been quick to welcome this. For the moment, then, the Maharashtra Congress-NCP government appears in no danger of imminent dissolution. But the damage caused by the latest round of public sparring between the two entities is unlikely to get repaired in a hurry.
The current tensions may well have their origins in the Congress debacle in Solapur last month, with that party making no attempts to cloak its suspicions that its junior partner in government had stabbed it in the back by virtually campaigning for the Opposition. Perhaps Sharad Pawar8217;s carefully aimed barb at 10, Janpath is his response to this needling. Or perhaps the Maratha strongman is only anxious to get a more decent share of national eyeballs. Why else would he, after having kept his counsel for months, stoked the foreign origins controversy yet again? As if on cue, every individual who has a stake in attacking the Sonia Congress 8212; from the ever-predictable Sangma to the ever-voluble Venkaiah Naidu 8212; has now taken up his refrain.
