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Rane to face trust vote on Wednesday

Chief Minister Narayan Rane will face a vote of confidence in the Maharashtra assembly on Wednesday.

The government, with 141 members and 10 independent legislators, are four short of a majority.

Madhukar Pichad, leader of the Opposition in the assembly, said the Congress has no intention of bringing down the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party government, but will oppose the vote of confidence.

The Congress Legislature Party will meet tomorrow morning after party leaders have spoken to other Opposition parties to discuss a strategy for the budget session.

In the 288 member House, the Congress has 78 members, the Sena 75, the BJP 66, the Janata Dal 10, the Peasants and Workers Party six, the CPI-M 3, the Samajwadi Party 4, Independents 44, the Maharashtra Vikas Congress and the Nagvidarbha Andolan Samiti one each and one nominated member.

The proceedings will begin with Governor Dr P C Alexander's address to the joint session of the state legislature. Later, the assembly will be convened. The confidence motion will be taken up followed by a four hour discussion. The motion will be put to vote after Rane's reply.

The trust vote has been necessitated by Manohar Joshi's sudden resignation as chief minister on January 30.

Revenue minister Narayan Rane was elevated as chief minister by Sena leader Bal Thackeray. The main Opposition Congress party then demanded that the governor first ascertain if the new chief minister enjoyed the confidence of the Independents supporting the Joshi government and the BJP.

Deputy Chief Minister and BJP leader Gopinath Munde met the governor and submitted a letter pledging support to Rane who has also managed to secure the support of more than 20 Independent legislators in writing.

After he was sworn-in on February 1, Dr Alexander asked Rane to prove his majority on the floor of the House within 21 days.

Significantly, a group of Independent legislators met Congress leader Sharad Pawar during his visit to Bombay last week.

Apart from the Independents and the Sena rebels, the course of action of the BJP ministers in the Joshi cabinet whom Rane dropped -- Jaganath Patil, A T Pawar and Digambar Pawar-Patil -- as well party MLA Vimal Mundada will be closely watched.

Though Rane gave three Independents ministers of state berths, their long pending demand for a cabinet berth was not fulfilled. Besides this, they are aggrieved that development work in their constituencies has been delayed.

Anil Deshmukh, leader of the Independents supporting the government, had convened a meeting of all Independents with Joshi and Munde. It was decided to hold a regular meeting of the chief minister, deputy chief minister, the legislator and the concerned minister and official to speed up development work.

UNI

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