New Delhi, Oct 22 (Inditop.com) Hitting back at union minister and his predecessor Vilasrao Deshmukh for refusing to give him credit, Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan said the Congress party’s performance in the assembly polls this time was better than that in previous elections.
“The performance of the Congress is better” than the previous assembly polls, Chavan said. Political analysts say the Congress-NCP alliance could end up with some 140 seats in the 288-member Maharashtra assembly.
When the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) alliance fought elections in 2004, the party finished second by winning 69 seats, two less than the NCP. Chavan took over from Deshmukh as chief minister after the Mumbai terror attacks last year.
Reacting to Deshmukh’s remark that Chavan’s performance as chief minister could not be judged as he got “hardly got six months” to govern the state, Chavan said his dispensation had taken “major decisions” in whatever time it had got.
“As a leader of the Congress party and as the leader of the legislative party of the Congress and NCP together, I have led the government… last eight, nine months I have performed,” Chavan told a TV channel.
“People have voted for the performance of the government, people have voted for the leadership of (Congress president) Sonia Gandhi,” Chavan said. “She sent me as the chief minister,” Chavan said and added that she would decide who would be the next chief minister.
Deshmukh had said the new Congress legislature party and its high command would choose the next chief minister.
Deshmukh, who was forced to quit the chief minister’s post after the terror attack in Mumbai last year, said his “stand was vindicated by the people of Maharashtra”.
Chavan also ruled out taking the support of Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which was on track to bag at least four seats and was leading in another dozen-odd seats around the state.
“We have nothing to do with the war between the Shiv Sena and MNS,” is how Chavan dismissed the issue.
The Congress-NCP coalition has had three different chief ministers in the last two terms — Vilasrao Deshmukh, then Sushilkumar Shinde, followed by Deshmukh again and the present incumbent Chavan.
