In RSVP for Uddhav Thackeray’s Swearing-In, Sonia Gandhi Gets Candid on ‘Extraordinary Circumstances’

New Delhi: Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Thursday acknowledged the “extraordinary circumstances” that brought the Shiv Sena, NCP and her party together in Maharashtra, but expressed confidence that the alliance will provide a stable government.

In a letter to Chief Minister-designate Uddhav Thackeray, Gandhi also expressed her inability to attend swearing-in ceremony scheduled for Thursday evening.

“The Shiv Sena, NCP and the Congress have come together under quite extraordinary circumstances at a time when the country faces unprecedented threats from the BJP. The political atmosphere has become poisonous and the economy has collapsed, farmers are facing great distress,” Gandhi said.

"I have every confidence that the Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena will work together in the spirit of cooperation to give people of Maharashtra a stable and responsive government that will uphold the Constitution and the value of democracy," she further wrote.

Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's letter to Maharashtra CM-designate Uddhav Thackeray

The Congress chief had expressed similar sentiments while addressing the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting earlier in the day.

"There is worsening distress among farmers, traders and small and medium businesses. Consumption, especially in rural areas, is falling. Exports are declining. And prices of essential food commodities are rising, causing hardship to households. Instead of tackling the problem, the Modi-Shah government is busy fudging statistics or, indeed, not publishing them at all," the Congress president said.

"The public sector has been put on the block, in all probability, to be sold off to a few favoured business people. What will be the fate of the thousands of workers at those enterprises? Lakhs upon lakhs of salaried and ordinary families are worried about their deposits in banks," she said.

Gandhi also held the governor directly responsible for the political drama in Maharashtra. "There is no doubt that he (Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari) acted under the instructions of the prime minister and the home minister. The BJP's pre-poll alliance did not hold because of its own arrogance and over-confidence."