With a strong opposition bench and comments of former Congress President Rahul Gandhi's dig on revolutionary freedom fighter Veer Savarkar, the new Maha Vikas Aghadi government led by Uddhav Thackeray faces a tough time and would face rough weather ahead in the winter session of Maharashtra legislature commencing in Nagpur on Monday.
For Thackeray, who heads the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress alliance government, the immediate task ahead is to ensure that everybody is together and immediately after the session goes for the Cabinet expansion.
On 28 November, Thackeray was sworn in as Chief Minister along with six ministers, two each from the three parties, but the portfolios were allocated only on 12 December, a gap of 15 days, signalling that there are issues within the new political coalition in Maharashtra that saw the ideologically diametrically-opposite Congress-NCP alliance and Shiv Sena coming together.
Two-time former Chief Minister and now Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis is looking at every opportunity to dislodge the MVA government.
However, he too is facing problems and some senior leaders including Eknath Khadse and Pankaja Munde, the daughter of late Gopinath Munde, virtually raising the banner of revolt against the state BJP leadership, for being ignored in the last five years when the BJP-Shiv Sena saffron alliance government was in power.
Gandhi's "I am not Rahul Savarkar" remark has invited the ire of its new ally Shiv Sena and this is going to be a talking point during the session in the state's winter capital.
"My name is not Rahul Savarkar, I am Rahul Gandhi. I will never apologise for speaking truth and nor will any Congressman do so. It is (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi and his assistant Amit Shah who has to apologise to the country for destroying India's economy," he had added in his opening remarks at the party's mega rally in Delhi's Ramlila Maidan on Saturday afternoon.
Fadnavis has tweeted saying: "Rahul Gandhi’s statement is absolutely condemnable!
He is nowhere close to even a single good deed of Veer Savarkar & his greatness. Not just this, he should not even do the blunder of considering himself as ‘Gandhi’!One cannot become ‘Gandhi’by just keeping his surname as Gandhi!"
Uddhav will now have to do a balancing act and minimise the damage so that he does not face problems. The BJP has also accused the Shiv Sena of diluting its stand on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
The BJP side also angry as immediately after taking over Uddhav has ordered a review of various projects including the bullet train project, the pet project of Modi.
Besides, he also issued stop-work notice for the metro crashed in the Aarey forest.
The BJP is also unhappy over the state's move to drop offences of minor nature in the Koregaon Bhima case.
One of the major challenges for Uddhav now at the ground level is to tackle the agrarian crisis and announce a comprehensive relief for farmers.
