MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE- Expanding Scope

in the party mouthpiece Samna against the state chief minister, Manohar Joshi, reflects his penchant for arbitrary assertion of power. Thackeray, who has never hesitated to appropriate all the credit for the rise of SS-BJP alliance to power in Maharashtra, is evidently finding it difficult to accept that he has to now take the blame for the alliance's poor showing in the Lok Sabha polls, Thackeray used the attack on the government by opposition leaders R R Patil and Chhagan Bhujbal in the legislature to launch his own criticism of the chief minister. By lending credibility to the opposition charge of corruption against Joshi, Thackeray sought to lay the blame for the poll debacle at Joshi's door. He also announced his temporary withdrawal from politics, thereby distancing himself from the failures of the three-year old SS-BJP regime.