After CWC meet, UPA coordination commitee meets today

The UPA coordination committee will meet here on Thursday in an apparent move to endorse government's new economic reforms decisions, two days after Congress fully backed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The meeting of the committee headed by Congress President Sonia Gandhi is expected to make an attempt to formulate a coordinated response of the ruling alliance to the challenging economic issues before the country.

It also comes against the backdrop of the political crisis in Maharashtra that has seen cracks widen in the ruling Congress-NCP coalition in the state. The committee was constituted last month to ensure cohesive functioning of UPA after Congress ally NCP had raised the issue of lack of coordination in the ruling alliance. It has met twice so far.

This is the first meeting of the committee after Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress pulled out of UPA last week.

TMC, the second largest constituent of the UPA with 19 MPs, withdrew support to the government protesting its decisions on FDI in multi-brand retail, diesel price hike and cap on subsidized domestic LPG cylinders.

Another UPA constituent DMK also organized a bandh against the government measures on September 20, when the Opposition organized a nation-wide agitation on these issues.

The meeting comes at a time when the government is facing an Opposition attack on its new economic reform measures. A meeting of the Congress Working Committee(CWC) yesterday endorsed the government's initiatives with Sonia Gandhi saying the steps were "very necessary" to bring the economy back on the rails.

Asked if NCP would raise the issue of resignation of its leader Ajit Pawar as Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister at the coordination committee meeting, Union Minister and NCP Vice President Praful Patel replied in the negative.