Why Chavan has fallen foul of friends and foes

Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan has the reputation of being a clean politician. He has been widely appreciated for reining in the powerful builders’ lobby. And he has brought some discipline in the state administration.

Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan has the reputation of being a clean politician. He has been widely appreciated for reining in the powerful builders’ lobby. And he has brought some discipline in the state administration.

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However, he has fallen foul of some sections. And those sections are now happy that the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) is now attacking him.

The NCP is most vocal against Chavan, accusing him of not taking it into confidence while taking important decisions.

Chavan has been targeting all institutions that are important to Pawar and has been threatening to bring out a white paper on the failed irrigation projects – something which can expose the NCP’s supposed role in various scams in this sector.

However, last month, legislators owing allegiance to former chief ministers Ashok Chavan and Vilasrao Deshmukh, both Congressmen, also took on Chavan in a meeting and told him that they were not happy with his functioning. Pawar

From the builders’ lobby to his party colleagues, Chavan seems to have become everybody’s favourite whipping-boy in the state.

Partly, he has himself to blame for this. He avoided and side-stepped key decisions in areas ranging from policy to transfers because he had to “completely study (an) issue” – initially for weeks and then for months together – bringing administration to a semi-paralytic state.

Partly he can blame the mandate given to him: to clean up the administration in Maharashtra and restore a semblance of respectability and integrity after several top bureaucrats and politicians including his predecessor Ashok Chavan were implicated in the Adarsh scam.