Agatha Sangma

New Delhi, July 23: Agatha Sangma today met Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar and offered to quit as Union minister of state for rural development.

She was responding to complaints from leaders who felt she had violated the party line by campaigning for her father, P.A. Sangma, in the presidential election.

But developments after the presidential election that have pitched the NCP against the Congress might have given Agatha a fresh lease of life.

Party sources, which indicated till a few days before the President election that she would be sacked, today said a lenient view could be taken if the NCP failed to come to an accommodation with the Congress.

Pawar today asked Agatha to comply with the party decision not to attend official duties. No NCP minister is doing any official work as a decision has to be taken whether the resignation sent to the Prime Minister on Friday would be withdrawn or not.

Although individual ministers have not resigned, the communication to the Prime Minister said the NCP would like to give outside support to the government, which entails ministers’ withdrawal.

Agatha’s case is, however, different. She may have to go even if Pawar manages to strike a deal with the Congress. There are reports suggesting that Pawar wants his daughter, Supriya Sule, to join the government.

But Sule cannot replace Agatha as a junior minister and Pawar would like to extract at least a minister of state with independent charge berth for her. This urgency is said to have been created by reports suggesting Rahul Gandhi’s entry into the cabinet.

The situation is complex as the Congress is saying the NCP has already exceeded its quota by taking two cabinet berths and Agatha was accommodated only because she is a tribal from the Northeast.

The Congress does not have any problem in continuing with Agatha as a minister. The NCP has only nine MPs with two cabinet ministers. The Trinamul Congress has 19 MPs but one cabinet minister.

Pawar may settle for only two cabinet berths if he is given a more powerful portfolio, one of the top four, and Praful Patel is given the commerce ministry.

But the Congress is not prepared for that. This tussle may finally push the pending cabinet shuffle beyond the monsoon session of Parliament. There is already talk of changes happening only in September.

NCP delays decision

The NCP has delayed its final decision on pulling out of the Manmohan Singh government, giving the negotiation process some more time even as the Congress showed no signs of buckling under pressure.

The deadlock will continue in the meantime with all the three NCP ministers boycotting official work and events and desisting from using government-allotted cars.

The three ministers did not attend tonight’s dinner hosted by the Prime Minister in honour of outgoing President Pratibha Patil, although Manmohan Singh spoke to Sharad Pawar today.

Pawar and other senior NCP leaders, however, visited President-elect Pranab Mukherjee to congratulate him and attended the farewell event for Pratibha Patil in Parliament’s Central Hall.

Praful Patel, who said after the NCP meeting that the decision would be taken tomorrow or day after, said they were not taking part in any government event at present.

Patel asserted that the NCP was “an integral part of UPA and would remain so till the last day of 2014”, even if the ministers pulled out of he government.

He said the decision was delayed because “colleagues from Maharashtra could not attend today’s meeting”.