CM Fadnavis defers Cabinet meet to avoid clash

Mumbai: To avoid a possible spat in his Cabinet, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has postponed a meeting of his ministers this week. The Cabinet meet was to take place on Tuesday but the buzz is that CM does not want ministers to confront each other, in a bid to avoid discussion on the fractured ties with Shiv Sena amid a possible threat to their coalition government in the state.

Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had snapped ties for local body elections, which resulted in a bitter campaign. After the results, Sena has been trying to get Congress on board to win the mayoral post in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Council (BMC).

The BJP has challenged Sena to go with Congress and the saffron party’s central leadership has asked its men in the state not to bow down before Sena over the mayoral post. The new mayor in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is likely to be decided on March 9. The CM has decided to postpone the Cabinet meeting for a week and wait for both sides to get a clear idea about their partnership. However, this measure has raised questions over the survival of Mr Fadnavis’ government.

A senior BJP minister in the state Cabinet admitted that tensions were high, but maintained that it is the CM’s prerogative whether or not to call Cabinet meetings. “We don’t want to give the upper hand to Sena. If we called a meeting and they boycotted it, a message would be sent to the cadre that we tried to tone things down. In such a situation, given our huge victory, why would we give Sena a chance to demoralise our cadre?” he said on condition of anonymity.

However, Sena leader Divakar Raote sarcastically said, “Generally meetings’ schedules come to us before every session as many bills need to be cleared by the Cabinet. But this time it seems our government doesn’t have business to place before the House other than the budget. So Mr Fadnavis is not calling the meeting.”