New Delhi: Annoyed with Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar meeting Shiv Sena Chief Bal Thackeray, the Congress used the price rise issue against the agriculture minister saying it was a ''collective but differentiated responsibility'' to curb the food inflation.

According to Congress sources, the meeting of Mr Pawar, who is also president of the Mumbai Cricket Association, with Mr Thackeray on the security issue of Australian cricketers, indicated yesterday that he had no trust in his own party's Home Minister in Maharashtra.

''This is a vote of no-confidence in his own party's Home Minister,'' the sources said on condition of anonymity. They also criticised the agriculture minister for failing to check the ''crisis of food inflation.''

However, Congress spokesman Manish Tewari said that law and order was a state responsibility and Maharashtra government would meet this responsibility properly.

''It was not important who meets whom, it is for them to decide,'' he said when asked why Mr Pawar met Mr Thackeray indicating that the latter was an extra-constitutional authority.

Regarding the speculation that the meeting between the NCP leader and the Sena Chief was in view of flak received from the Congress Working Committee on the issue of price rise, Mr Tewari said that his party had political relations with the NCP as they are running the government together both at the Centre and in Maharashtra, and it was not in the culture and ethos of Congress to criticise its ally.