Mumbai: Senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan has said that Haryana and Maharashtra will see a change of government after assembly elections, and it will have consequences for the stability of the BJP-led coalition government at the Centre too.
In an exclusive interview to PTI on Thursday, Chavan also claimed that women in Maharashtra will not vote for the BJP merely because of the `Ladki Bahin' scheme.
On `tensions' in the Opposition's Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance over the Chief Ministerial face, he said the formula so far has been that the party with the highest number of seats gets the post. While BJP-ruled Haryana will go to polls next month, elections are yet to be announced in Maharashtra where the `Mahayuti' coalition of BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP is in power.
"A change in government in these two states will have a direct impact on the stability of (Narendra) Modi's coalition government which rests on the support of Chandrababu Naidu and Nitish Kumar. In both states there will be a change....BJP will be thrown out," claimed the Congress leader. About the political situation in his home state, Chavan, a former chief minister, said Maharashtra has never seen the kind of fragmented polity that is prevailing now, with three big parties ranged on each side of political divide.
"In Lok Sabha elections, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) won 65 percent of 48 seats, which translates to 183 of the 288 assembly seats. In assembly polls, we will do better. The government hasn't addressed any of the issues concerning people, like inflation, unemployment, farmer distress, corruption," he said.
The MVA alliance of Congress, Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) and Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (SP) will focus on corruption, Chavan said. "BJP will be held accountable for the charge of corruption in the tender for Shivaji Maharaj's statue (that collapsed in Sindhudurg district)," he said, claiming that a statue which should have taken three years to make was forced to be completed in three months.
The MLAs who switched sides after the split of the Shiv Sena and NCP will have to answer to the electorate, he added. Chavan, who heads the manifesto committee of the state Congress, said the party was planning to come out with a "guarantee card". Financial assistance was women's right, he said.
"It cannot be considered freebies. This is (for) all the unpaid work done by women, of looking after families and raising the next generation," he said. This "unpaid work" should be included while computing GDP, Chavan said. "It should be computed, and it is the right of the female family member for the unpaid services she is rendering to society," he said, while claiming that a scheme like the `Laadki Bahin Yojana' was a Congress idea, promised and implemented in Karnataka and Telangana.
"There is no question why shouldn't we do it in Maharashtra," Chavan said. Notably, the ruling Mahayuti has been claiming that its `Laadki Bahin Yojana' under which Rs 1,500 are paid to women every month will be a gamechanger in the coming elections. Chavan said the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government has failed on all fronts, and hence it has nothing to offer except the Ladki Bahin scheme.
The government cannot avoid accountability in the Badlapur case (where two kindergarten girls were allegedly sexually assaulted in school) or the corruption in connection with the Shivaji Maharaj statue, farmer suicides and problems of the unemployed educated youth, he asserted. "How come you suddenly discovered your dear sisters (`Ladki Bahin') after the Lok Sabha loss?" Chavan asked.
Deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis was chief minister for five years from 2014, but such a scheme was not introduced then, and now the BJP, in panic mode, is thinking that women will vote for it because of the Rs 1,500 assistance, said the Congress leader. "They are living in a dream world, as that will not happen. Congress is not talking through the hat. We have implemented women's financial assistance in Karnataka and Telangana. We had promised in the Lok Sabha manifesto. We will do better in Maharashtra," he said.
There were no differences in the MVA over the chief ministerial candidate, asserted Chavan. "Since Maharashtra entered the coalition era, a formula has been in practice where the party with larger number of MLAs gets the CM post. In 2019 too, Uddhav Thackeray became CM because his party had the largest number of seats, (more) than Congress and NCP. It is upto the high command (to decide) if the practice should change," he said.
Notably, ally Uddhav Thackeray had said recently that the MVA's CM face should be declared in advance. On the BJP countering the controversy over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Chief Justice of India Dhananjay Chandrachud's residence for Ganesh festival by raking up an Iftar party of Manmohan Singh being attended by then CJI, Chavan said it was a "silly comparison". "People do meet on social occasions. We have the highest regard for the CJI," he said.
On the BJP attacking Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his comments in the United States, Chavan said the ruling party was afraid of Gandhi as he is gaining a huge traction not just in India but also abroad. "So the BJP is trying to denigrate him," he added. "In today's age, everyone has access to what he speaks in Delhi or Dallas. He airs his ideas freely and frankly to let Indian diaspora and people interested in following South Asia get an opposition perspective," the former Maharashtra CM said.
