Maharashtra CM fires salvo at Pawar

The war of words between the Congress and its ally NCP in Maharashtra is getting shriller with Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan hitting back at  Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar on Wednesday for his previous day’s comments on the “chief minister’s paralysis”.

The war of words between the Congress and its ally NCP in Maharashtra is getting shriller with Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan hitting back at  Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar on Wednesday for his previous day’s comments on the “chief minister’s paralysis”. 

On Tuesday, Pawar had remarked at a function in Pune that the Chief Minister’s decisions were so much delayed that one wondered whether he was affected with paralysis.

On Wednesday, Chavan chose to respond in his own subtle way.

“Files that do not fit within the rules take time to clear as we have to figure out how to make them fit under the rules.

“Decisions that do not require this are being cleared by the bureaucrats themselves and they do not come to the ministers or me,” Chavan said, hinting that the files that were not cleared lacked any ‘public interest’.

“There needs to be a distinction between larger public interest and issues concerning policy,” he said, adding he did not hold back files that were in the larger public interest.

He, however, refused to be drawn further in to the spat saying, “I have to run a coalition, I will not say much more on this matter”.

Chavan’s parting comments at the press meet were “I will reply at the right time at the right place,” hinting at a next round of Congress- Nationalist Congress Party mud-slinging in the coming days.

The first salvo of the verbal duel was fired on Tuesday by Pawar when he lamented the slow process of decision-making by the Chief Minister and comparing him to former  chief ministers Ashok Chavan and Vilasrao Deshmukh, who were faster in clearing files.

NCP chief Sharad Pawar Pawar alleged that under the current administration, since the files were not being signed for months he doubted whether the Chief Minister Chavan suffered from paralysis.

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