The dispute over plum departments and guardianship of districts delayed portfolio allocation even after a week
Mumbai: The difficult choice given to cabinet ministers to choose either of the plum departments or the guardianship of the districts of their liking is delaying the portfolio allocation of the ministers in Maharashtra, sources privy of the developments have said.
In the previous government the Shiv Sena as well as the NCP pulled shots. They got almost all they wanted - sometimes even at the cost of the BJP. However, with the massive mandate this time, the BJP is not ready to budge. Apart from a couple of plum departments the BJP wishes to keep all the plum portfolios with itself. Moreover, under the new scheme of arrangements between the alliance partners, the old power sharing formula is being replaced with the new one. This is likely to change the guardian ministers of most of the districts and the BJP has staked claim on guardianship of key districts, which in turn has delayed the portfolio allocation, the sources said.
Pune is one of the key districts that the BJP wants to control. During the previous government finance minister and NCP chief Ajit Pawar was also the guardian minister of Pune. However, this time the BJP, which has given two ministerial berths to Pune city in the form of Chandrakant Patil and Madhuri Misal, is keen on controlling the funds allocation in the district by staking claim on the guardian ministership. Pawar is not comfortable with this new arrangement and that is delaying the finalization of portfolios, the sources said.
Pawar wanted to keep both - the finance department as well as the guardianship of the Pune district. However, the BJP has asked him to choose between any one of these two things, the sources said. Pawar is upset due to delay in portfolio allocation. But, he is learnt to have been told that deliberations are going on to ensure there is no display of disgruntlement like the one seen after the cabinet expansion wherein several former ministers expressed disappointment over not being clearly told of being dropped from the cabinet in advance.
Attempts are being made to thoroughly discuss even the finer aspects of the new power sharing formula with as many concerned individuals as possible and to convince them to follow the formula. This is delaying the portfolio allocation, the sources added.
Meanwhile, DCM Eknath Shinde, who is facing ire of his party MLAs after he had to drop at least three of his ministers while he was the CM, mat his party MLAs in a bid to pacify them saying that those who were promised ministerial berth and were not given it stand a chance in the next expansion. However, this has led to speculations whether it was meant just to pacify disgruntled MLAs or some of the ministers in the current cabinet too are likely to be dropped in the due course of time.
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