Maharashtra Congress divided on CM's style of functioning

A section of the Maharashtra Congress has realised chief minister Prithviraj Chavan's clean image is not sufficient to mobilise votes, but it's not in a position to press for a leadership change due to the forthcoming civic polls. Between November and February, 195 municipalities, 12 municipal corporations and 27 zilla parishads are going to the polls.

The section is against Chavan's slow pace of clearing files and looking at every file with suspicion. But another section, led by state party chief Manikrao Thakre, thinks Chavan's clean image should be exploited to reach out to voters and take on anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare.

A group of legislators recently told senior party leadership Chavan's continuation would not only deteriorate their individual electoral prospects, but also give an edge to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in consolidating its position.

Some Congress legislators claim NCP ministers, led by deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, have been aggressive when it comes to clearing files, especially of developmental works and allocation of funds, and their ministers under Chavan's leadership lack such drive, which is quite demotivating.

A Congress minister, who recently met party leadership in Delhi, told Business Standard, "Chavan is a good person, but he has no hold on the administration. There has been a total disconnect between the party organisation and government. The party organisation is starved of funds and there is very little attempt being made by Chavan to be proactive on this front. Office bearers have been complaining about fund crunch, despite the party leading the government in Maharashtra."

However, he said the party leadership, striving to deal with the 2G spectrum mess, was in no mood to take any decision on leadership change in Maharashtra.

Chavan admitted certain newspapers and media were running campaign against him. Defending his style of functioning, he said he was focusing on the implementation of administrative reforms and clearing files by applying several criteria, including transparency.