A screengrab of Manikrao Kokate seen playing games on his phone inside Assembly and Maharashtra CM Fadnavis.
Credit: X, PTI.
Mumbai: The fate of Maharashtra’s controversial agriculture minister Manikrao Kokate would be decided next week.
The leadership of BJP-led Maha Yuti is extremely upset over Kokate’s statements of describing farmers as “beggars”, the government as “begger” and playing online rummy inside the Maharashtra legislature.
Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and his deputies Eknath Shinde, the chief leader of Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar, the NCP president, are on the same page on the issue of conduct of ministers - and had not taken Kokate’s conduct lightly at a time when there is an agrarian distress and increasing suicides by farmers.
Fadnavis had publicly expressed displeasure over the act and statements of Kokate and so as Shinde.
The opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi has been seeking his removal.
The government has the option of his removal from the cabinet or changing the portfolio.
State NCP president Sunil Tatkare, who is the Raigad MP, has said that any decision on Kokate will be taken by Pawar.
Breaking his silence on the issue, Pawar said that he would be meeting Kokate next week. “I haven't yet met him (after the video of him playing rummy went viral)…I'm likely to meet him next Monday…if not, then Tuesday…I'll hear him out,” he told reporters on Thursday.
However, he said that the information that is in the public domain is that the video is inside the legislature.
“Since, the Vidhan Bhavan complex comes under the jurisdiction of Speaker Rahul Narwekar and Chairman Prof Ram Shinde and hence they have ordered a probe…this is what my information goes,” he said.