CM's tea-party diplomacy brings Opposition to Ramgiri

CM’s trick works, Opposition

tries hand with counter-trick

Staff Reporter
After a gap of a few years, the Opposition leaders attended the customary tea-party hosted by Chief Minister on the eve of commencement of winter session of State Legislature. However, there are political undertones to the seemingly simple development. During the winter session commencing from Monday, more such political developments are likely to be witnessed.
Usually, the Opposition cites reasons like failure of the Government in addressing the real issues of people, failure in ensuring all-round development of Vidarbha region, farmers suicides, corruption etc. There was a bit of a trouble within the Opposition constituents as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena boycotted the tea-party while Maharashtra Navnirman Sena attended it. MNS cited the reason that it wanted to discuss with Chief Minister the issues concerning people. This was perceived as crack within the Opposition.

Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan (centre) is flanked by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and ministers (on the left) Chhagan Bhujbal, Harshwardhan Patil, R R Patil; and the Opposition leaders (right) Eknath Khadse, Vinod Tawde, Subhash Desai, Devendra Fadnavis for pre-session meeting at ‘Ramgiri’, on Sunday.

Against this backdrop, it was widely speculated that the Opposition leaders would boycott the customary tea-party hosted by Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Sunday evening. They were to fine-tune decision on this count in a meeting to be held on Sunday morning. However, Chavan showed his political smartness in announcing on Saturday late night that he cancelled the customary tea-party on account of national mourning following sad demise of anti-apartheid hero Dr Nelson Mandela. At the same time, he made it clear that the meeting with ministers and the Opposition leaders as well as group leaders in the State Legislature, would be held as scheduled at his official residence ‘Ramgiri’.
This left the Opposition in a tight spot. If it said ‘no’ to attending the meeting, the Democratic Front (DF) Government would capitalise on that to accuse the Opposition of showing disinterest in discussing issues of public importance ahead of winter session. If it said ‘yes’, DF Government would still utilise the opportunity to indirectly claim a victory in political mind-game.
Some very senior and seasoned politicians in the Opposition camp convinced their side to attend the meeting called by the Chief Minister and raise a demand, which the DF Government would not show interest in fulfilling. Thus, the Opposition leaders revised their strategy and demanded the DF Government to extend winter session from two weeks to four weeks so that vital issues could be discussed at length. As the legislative business for winter session has been finalised already, Chief Minister had no other option but to ‘expect’ the Opposition to raise all issues in ‘given time’ without disrupting the proceedings.
Of course, this is but a starting point of heavy politicking that would be witnessed during next two weeks of winter session. There will be more strategic responses to attacks and counter-attacks from the DF Government as well as the Opposition parties.