New Delhi, June 10
Under pressure to take action against tainted MP Padamsinh Patil, the NCP on Wednesday suspended the its Lok Sabha member from Osamanabad from the party’s primary membership. The tainted MP, accused of a Congress leader’s murder, will, however, continue to represent Osamanabad in the Lok Sabha.

NCP’s disciplinary action committee met in the Capital on Wednesday and decided to suspend Patil from the primary membership, senior NCP leader and Aviation Minister Praful Patel said.

“We have been keeping a close watch on proceedings. We are not holding him guilty but our aim is to maintain highest sense of probity. We have complete faith in the legal system of the country and would like to maintain distance from Patil till he faces the legal process. It is between Patil and investigating agencies now. If he proves his innocence we will have no problem in taking him back,” Patel said.

Patel said Patil would continue to be a member of the Parliament “as an MP can only loose his membership of the Parliament if he is convicted”. “The party can take action against him if he defies the whip,” he explained, while commenting on whether the party would now put pressure on Patil to resign from the Parliament.

NCP sources, however, feel otherwise. Quoting Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil who resigned following 26/11 incident, they say efforts will be made to convince Padamsinh Patil to follow the lead. Already there is a perceptable change in the party’s tone and tenor on Patil, they explain.

Officially, the NCP’s version still remains that Patil was with the NCP till proven guilty. “If proved guilty the NCP will follow the next step of expulsion. Till then the party will like to follow the convention that a person facing investigations in a criminal case should not be associated with it,” said Patel.

The Osmanabad MP was arrested on Sunday by the CBI in connection with the killing of his cousin and Congress leader Pavan Raje Nimbalkar and his driver Samad Qazi in Navi Mumbai in 2006. The NCP, accused of protecting its MP, says the party took time to react because it did not want to indulge in any knee-jerk reactions.

Incidentally, the suspension has come three days after Patil was arrested by the CBI.

There were growing demands from political parties, including from the ally Congress and from within the NCP that action should be taken against Patil. There were allegations that the NCP was trying to shield him, especially after initial reactions from the party leadership that the NCP will stand by Patil through thick and thin.

Replying to criticism that the party should have acted much earlier, Patel said Patil was arrested on Sunday and there was a Parliament session on till yesterday. “We did not want to show a knee-jerk reaction towards a senior leader”.

Sources in the NCP say the party was under tremendous pressure to show action against the tainted leader, especially in the wake of the coming Assembly elections in the state. The Oppostion BJP and Shiv Sena would have had a field day had no action was taken againt the murder-convict.

Also there is clamour within the Congress that the party should go alone in the Maharashtra Assembly, a demand that increased after the Patil incident was reported. Patel however said that the NCP enjoyed a “good relationship and excellent relationship” with the Congress both at the Centre and the state. “ We have no communication from nay official source on anything contrary to that,” he said.