Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan took on his opponents within the Congress on Tuesday saying the whisper campaign against him was “unfortunate” and those calling for his exit should instead “buckle up” for the state assembly polls due in October.
“This kind of whisper campaign will not pressure the party high command. It will take decisions in the interests of the party. If the high command feels the need for a re-alignment, it is free to undertake it,” Mr Chavan said in his first interaction with the media after the party’s disastrous performance in the Lok Sabha polls. He dismissed questions on whether he had offered his resignation to the high command like Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi.
Mr Chavan admitted that the results were a “cause of concern” for the forthcoming assembly elections. However, he pointed out that the Congress party won the by-election from the Risod constituency in Vidarbha shortly before it was routed in the Lok Sabha polls. “We still need to analyse the causes and implications of the defeat for the assembly polls,” he said.
Mr Chavan conceded that the results reflected “voter anger” against the Congress party. However, he said this could not be termed as a Modi wave. “If there was a Modi wave, then why did it not work in the Southern states, West Bengal and Orissa?”he asked.
The Chief Minister said the anger against the Congress could have stemmed from inflation, the corruption scandals during the UPA regime and corporate sector’s unhappiness with its decisions. “The corporate sector was unhappy with the delays in environmental clearances, decisions on the coal leases, the Vodafone taxation issue, the FIR against the Birlas,”Mr Chavan admitted.
He said the UPA should have speeded up the approval process for industry. “We are trying to do that in Maharashtra, but we still need to speed it up much more,” Mr Chavan said. He claimed that the UPA regime had seen good economic growth but perhaps the corruption cases overshadowed this in public perception. “Perhaps people linked inflation to the corruption cases,” Mr Chavan said.
