By all means, it is a quaint political development. In the last Lok Sabha election, the Congress workers ensured Kalmadi's defeat since he had betrayed his political mentor Sharad Pawar. In the ensuing Lok Sabha election, they will now have to work with Kalmadi against Pawar.

Pawar meanwhile has received a first major jolt in his home district when majority of Congress corporators in Pune and neighbouring Pimpri-Chinchwad, part of Pawar's Baramati constituency, preferred to stay away from his meeting.

The entire Pune district, comprising two Lok Sabha constituencies -- Baramati and Khed, however, expressed full confidence in Pawar with all the prominent leaders, MLAs, zilla parishad members and sugar barons attending his rally.

Pawar on Saturday conducted three separate meetings of his supporters before leaving for Mumbai late night. The meeting for the supporters in city was held at Hotel Kapila while another for those in rural outskirts was held at the bungalow of Zilla Parishad president Jalinder Kamthe. A spearate meeting was also held for the corporators in Pimpri-Chinchwad.

The Pawar camp received a rude shock when only 12 Congress corporators out of 40 attended the meeting addressed by Pawar himself. The Pawar camp managers did their best to attract a maximum number of corporators during the past two days. Former mayors Ulhas Dhole-Patil, Ankush Kakade and Shantilal Suratwala and member of the dissolved Lok Sabha Vitthal Tupe personally called on all the Congress corporators.

Several corporators refused to leave the party while some of them said they would join `saheb' at a later stage. The Pawar supporters sought to undermine the situation saying that several corporators were still in a confused state of mind. They expressed confidence that most of the corporators would join them in course of time. However, a number of prominent Congress leaders including former MLAs and mayors expressed their faith in leadership of Pawar.

In a damage control exercise, Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Prataprao Bhosale called on Ulhas Dhole-Patil at his hotel to ask the corporators to stay away from Pawar's meeting. Dhole-Patil, however, bluntly told that he would never desert Pawar `saheb.' The sources said state leaders called on all the corporators and asked them not to participate in Pawar's meeting.

In neighbouring Pimpri-Chinchwad, which falls in Pawar's Baramati constituency, about 32 Congress corporators out of 57 attended Pawar's meeting. While Mayor Madhukar Pawale was present at the meeting, deputy mayor Muralidhar Dhage and standing committe chairperson Shamim Pathan were conspicuious by their absence.

Congress leader Ramkrishna More, MLC, ensured that corporators stayed away from the meet.

At another meeting for the supporters in district, barring MLAs Narayan Pawar and Anantrao Thopte, all the four Congress MLAs including Dilip Valase-Patil, Kumar Gosavi, Popat Gawde and Subhash Kul were present. The Pawar camp heaved a sigh of relief when member of the dissolved Lok Sabha from Khed, Ashok Mohol, came to support Pawar. Addressing the meetings, Pawar explained to his supporters under what circumstances he was expelled. Pawar said his expulsion was undemocratic since he had not committed any mistake by raising the issue, concerning the party at the proper forum.

Pawar also launched a blistering attack on the coterie around Sonia Gandhi. He said the leaders who had lost two consecutive elections or had not faced a single election in their lives were running the party. The leaders who never understood pulse of the masses were taking vital decisions, he said and added that he communicated his resentment to Sonia Gandhi but the things did not change.

Pawar said Congress had lost its base in five major states of Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar but party leadership did not take any steps to improve the situation.