Maharashtra Minister Prithviraj Chavan completes three years

Mumbai: As Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan completed three years at the helm of Maharashtra, Congress party members felicitated him today on his achievements but Opposition members criticised him for not tackling corruption.

The state Congress leaders praised Chavan for his strong leadership, bringing in transparency in the administration, initiating more development work in the rural areas and speeding up completion of several infrastructural projects underway in Mumbai.

Another feather was added to his cap with the much-delayed Navi Mumbai international airport crossing a major hurdle today when project affected persons accepted the state government’s offer to provide 22.5 per cent developed land for the acquisition of their 671 acres.

The leaders, including state chief Manikrao Thakre, said Chavan’s successes would go a long way in helping the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance return to power in Delhi by sending more Congress MPs from Maharashtra to the Lok Sabha and also ensuring a win in state assembly polls.

However, BJP chief Devendra Phadnavis criticised Chavan and said in Nagpur that the chief minister kept his own image clean “but shielded his cabinet colleagues and others in irrigation and co-operative sector scams.

“He betrayed the people of the state by not tabling the Adarsh Society probe report within six months of its submission.”

When Chavan broke his promise of tabling the report in the legislature, the BJP approached the Bombay High Court with a public interest litigation making the chief minister and chief secretary as respondents.

Phadnavis also said that Chavan was concentrating mainly on containing the alliance partner, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). He went on to point that Chavan had also failed on many other fronts — like not setting up Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar’s memorial on Indu Mills land and installing Chhatrapti Shivaji’s statue off the Mumbai coast. Even the trans-harbour link project in Mumbai was in a limbo.

However, for an outsider to Maharashtra’s politics, Chavan, who was active in Delhi, was appointed to head the state in the wake of former chief minister Ashok Chavan having to step down following the Adarsh building scam. One of his main achievements is that he has been able to rein in the NCP, bogged down by irrigation scams.