Giving home ministry to NCP was a mistake: Chavan

Amid questions being raised on security issues in the wake of Wednesday’s serial blasts in Mumbai, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan today said the ruling Congress party’s decision to give the key home portfolio to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) was a mistake.

“I think it was a mistake. We should have re-looked at it. I don’t know of any other coalition government where the portfolios of home, finance and planning are not with the chief minister,” he said.

The Congress-NCP alliance has been ruling Maharashtra since 1999. The chief minister admitted that there were difficulties at times and decision-making in particular takes time.

An NCP minister, who did not want to be identified, told Business Standard: “Chavan’s statement was uncalled for at this juncture, especially when the police and other investigating agencies are carrying out investigations into the three bomb blasts. Chavan could have raised the issue of the home ministry’s allocation to NCP at the coordination committee and not before the media.”

Chavan had raised this issue immediately after he took over in November last year. On Thursday, he raked it once again when Home Minister and NCP leader R R Patil came under attack at a Cabinet meeting for the repeated failures of the home ministry to deal with the situation.

“This was a division we had agreed to in 1999 when Congress-NCP first came to power in the state. That pattern was based on the model adopted by the Shiv Sena-BJP government during 1995-99. “But then this is also a unique example where two almost equal partners are running the government, unlike in Delhi or West Bengal where the dominant partner has small parties’ support,” Chavan said.

He was responding to questions on whether there was an internal contradiction that a key portfolio like home is being held by a junior coalition partner.

Meanwhile, the chief minister squarely blamed the red tape for holding up buying of crucial security equipment like CCTVs and there were serious problems in police transfers and postings in the state which led to poor security and intelligence. “Procurement of equipment is a problem. I have raised this issue with the Prime Minister and home minister. But technology keeps on changing, you buy something and then it gets dated. Almost 5,000 CCTVs were meant to be bought for Mumbai which did not happen,” he said.