‘Risky home dept not with capable leaders’: Saamana critiques Pawar’s experiment

The Shiv Sena also commented that “capable” leaders such as Ajit Pawar or Dilip Walse Patil should have been given the role.

The Shiv Sena on Monday questioned if state home minister Anil Deshmukh was given the charge of the ‘risky’ department after no one within the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) was ready to take it. In an editorial in party mouthpiece Saamana, the Sena quoted NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s remark that no one in the party was open to taking up the reins of the home department. The Sena also commented that “capable” leaders such as Ajit Pawar or Dilip Walse Patil should have been given the role.

In an editorial in party mouthpiece Saamana, the Sena quoted NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s remark that no one in the party could take the reins of the home department. (HT Photo)

“Home department is risky work. In the last few years, RR Patil, Jayant Patil, [Chhagan] Bhujbal, etc have handled it. In the BJP government, chief minister Fadnavis had kept this sword with himself, and in the end the sword hurt him. Despite having the home department, many protests and issues erupted... therefore, the department is risky. Honestly, Ajit Pawar or Dilip Walse Patil were capable to handle the role, but Sharad Pawar gave the role to Vidarbha (Deshmukh is from Nagpur). We will know if this new experiment of Pawar is successful or not,” the editorial said.

The Sena also trained its gun on Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari over delay in approving Saturday’s portfolio allocation. It said that the Governor “kept the doors of Raj Bhavan open through the night to administer oath to Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar” but the “governor did not sign the portfolio allocation list and retired for the day...”

The Saamana editorial remarked that the portfolio allocation is a “business” of “rewarding” people and a “compromise”. It added that with the exercise having been completed, “Marathi people are now expecting ‘Ram Rajya’”.