"He was reasonable, worked within the system. I don't know what has happened now. He never previously had political ambitions," Chavan said in an interview to Aaj Tak.

"Definitely someone is guiding him towards political ambitions," the channel quoted Chavan as saying in a press release.

The Chief Minister denied that there was any rift with key ally NCP but admitted that in a coalition government there were difficulties in decision-making.

Chavan indicated that in the upcoming polls to the Mumbai Municipal Corporation, the Congress and NCP will fight separately just as they had done in all local elections before.
He also hit out at his critics for saying decision-making has become slow after he took over as Chief Minister last year.

"Yes, a businessman cannot walk into the offices of officials and leaders and get their files cleared personally. If you call that speedy decision-making then that's a different kind of governance," Chavan said.

Chavan said he had introduced fool-proof measures and ushered in transparency to ensure that the land scams that occurred before he took over do not occur again.