Dissidence in the Congress flared up in the open with senior minister Narayan Rane targeting Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, saying he was not happy with the state government's functioning

Rane also cautioned the party high command that the Congress will suffer reverses in the next elections if the Deshmukh government continued to function in the same fashion.

In Mumbai, a nonplussed Deshmukh rejected the former chief minister's charges and said his Congress-led government was working smoothly.

As the ruling party members squabbled, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray and Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar held a prolonged meeting in Mumbai.

Political analysts said that the meeting assumes importance as Rane is a 'common enemy' of both Thackeray as well as Pawar.

However, Thackeray ridiculed the speculations.

"We are polls apart when it comes to ideological convictions. But our personal bond of friendship always remained intact. I am wedded to Hindutva as a political ideology and if Pawar is to be believed, he is a staunch secularist," said the Sena patriarch

The BJP also asserted that the Pawar-Thackeray meeting will not disturb its existing alliance with the Sena nor would the tie-up expand to include a third party.

However, Rane's rebellion was short-lived. The Maratha leader, who crossed over to the Congress from the Shiv Sena and helped the former add seven MLAs to its kitty, has been asked to keep quiet.

Top sources in the party said that the Congress has conveyed to Rane that Sushil Kumar Shinde is likely to be made chief minister if there is a change of leadership.

Image: NCP leader and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad pawar greets Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray at the latter's residence in Mumbai on December 23.
Photograph: PTI Photo Also Read: Nothing political about meeting Pawar: Thackeray

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