MUMBAI: Rebel Shiv Sena MLA Sanjay Shirsat’s allegations that the chief minister remained unavailable to legislators and was flanked by a coterie that cut off access to him has put the focus on the CM’s Office and its working over the last 2-3 years.
To add grist to the mill, a recorded conversation is circulating on social media of a purported phone chat between Sena MLA Shahaji Patil and a party worker in which Patil is heard praising Thackeray as a “good man” while complaining that he wrote 14 letters to the CM to name an irrigation scheme after Bal Thackeray and even then it did not happen.
Many rebel Sena MLAs blame the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) for lack of communication between Thackeray and the MLAs. Compared to Devendra Fadnavis’s CMO, Uddhav has a much leaner team. While Fadnavis had half-a-dozen Officers on Special Duty (OSDs), Uddhav has one point man: former BMC officer Sudhir Naik. Apart from Naik, the CMO has IAS officers Ashish Kumar Singh and Vikas Kharge. The CM has also appointed former chief secretary Sitaram Kunte as Principal Advisor in the CMO.
A Sena functionary admitted that bureaucracy was a sore point. “Many MLAs were upset with the choice of officers…there was a big dependency on certain IAS officers. Many IAS/IPS officers who were holding key posts in the Fadnavis era were not removed and they continued to keep the Sena at bay…extensions were given to bureaucrats who were not popular. This also did not go down well with MLAs,” he said.
In the purported phone chat, Patil says, “There is no opposition to Uddhav Saheb...every MLA still considers him a good man. Everyone, including me, has so much respect for Uddhav Thackeray. In two and a half years, our MLAs have been fighting the NCP.
If there is a quarrel tomorrow, the NCP will take up our constituency. Everyone has the same feeling. Two and a half years have passed. Where are the funds? I sent letters to the CM to name the irrigation scheme after Hinduhrudaysamrat Balasaheb Thackeray. Sent 13-14 letters to the CMO, sent to Jayant Patil's office. I also raised this issue in the meeting with the CM two months ago. What does it cost, nothing? It's been two months since the meeting and now where is the decision? Well, we raised all the issues in that meeting, Saheb listened. Where is the result?” Patil is heard saying. Shirsat’s letter to Thackeray had also reiterated the point. Later in a video release, Shirsat said they would only get calls from the CMO. “We have given so many letters. We only got calls from the CMO…just check there must be at least 50 letters from each MLA. There was no action on these letters and we didn’t get the funds. " Shirsat said in the video released on Twitter.
