Dy CM says make our 12 nominees legislators and get development boards to control
Former Speaker of the house Nana Patole and MRCC president Bhai Jagtap protested against the fuel price rise by riding bicycles to Vidhan Bhavan from the statue of Mahatma Gandhi
Maharashtra governor Bhagatsingh Koshyari continued to be the talking point in state politics on day one of the budget session on Monday. After the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government made him read some anti-Centre observations in his address to the joint session of the legislature, the state government attempted bartering with the Raj Bhavan through the opposition, to get its 12 representatives nominated to the upper house in exchange for renewing the governor-controlled statutory development boards for backward regions.
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The relations between the government and the governor have been far from cordial, and of late, there has been unprecedented sparring. In the wake of this, the governor’s address to the joint session had become an event in itself when Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, who has stopped flying from the Raj Bhavan helipad after the governor was denied the state’s permission to fly a government aircraft, formally received Koshyari at the Vidhan Bhavan on Monday. The government’s rejection of Koshyari’s letter to the State Legislature asking to hold the Speaker’s election gave the opposition BJP another issue to be raised.
Koshyari read out the Marathi speech praising the government for effectively managing the pandemic, including CM Thackeray’s schemes and strategies that have been criticised by the BJP and the Economic Survey of India. Since the governor’s address is a statement the government prepares, Koshyari had to read out the anti-Centre article. Koshyari said GST compensation to the tune of Rs 29,290 cr was overdue from the Central government, a charge opposition leader Devendra Fadnavis dismissed as the MVA’s attempt to mask its own failure.
Ajit Pawar’s offer
When the supplementary demands were placed, BJP leaders Fadnavis and Sudhir Mungantiwar wanted to know whether adequate funds had been allocated to the statutory development boards of Vidarbha, Marathwada and rest of Maharashtra, and demanded to know the reasons for delaying revival of the boards whose terms have expired last April. Following allegations of regional imbalance in development, a Presidential order under Article 371(2) had set up these boards in 1994 under the governor’s jurisdiction to ensure equitable distribution of funds for removing the development backlog of backward regions. The catch here is that the governor is empowered under Rule 7 of the statutory development boards to issue directives to state on region-specific distribution of outlay in annual plan, and appoint board members without the State Cabinet’s approval. Obviously, the three-party government doesn’t want Koshyari to use such enormous powers.
When pressed for response, Dy CM Pawar, who also heads the finance and planning department, told the house very blatantly that the government was in favour of reviving the boards, but it intended to do so if the names of the 12 nominees were cleared by the governor who is sitting on the recommendation since October 2020. “We will do it the day the names are cleared [by the governor],” he said.
Fadnavis decried the offer saying Pawar was holding backward regions to ransom for the 12 people. “The people will not forgive you. We’re not begging but asking for our statutory right. Pawar should retract his statement,” he said, eliciting no action from the finance minister. The BJP staged a walk-out in protest.
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