Five days after being unreachable, and amid rumours about his displeasure over the portfolios allocated to him, senior Congress minister Vijay Wadettiwar took charge of his departments on Friday saying he has no complaints.
To pacify him, he will now also be given charge of the Relief and Rehabilitation Department, which was allocated earlier to the Congress but later given to a Sena minister.
Mr. Wadettiwar was assigned the OBC, SEBC, VJNT Welfare Department and other smaller departments, and was said to be unhappy with the portfolios. He had neither taken charge of the departments nor had he attended the one-day special Assembly session.
State Congress president Balasaheb Thorat visited Delhi on Thursday night and informed the party leadership about the crisis, following which Mr Wadettiwar was asked to take charge with one extra department handed over to him.
The Minister said, “I was never upset with my party. I was absent in the Assembly session because I had family commitments. I had informed Thorat ji about it.”
In the previous Assembly, Mr. Wadettiwar was chosen as the Leader of Opposition in the last term after erstwhile LoP Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil quit the Congress to join Bharatiya Janata Party. He was instrumental in ensuring the victory of the lone Congress MP from Maharashtra, in the Chandrapur Lok Sabha constituency. Known to be a mass leader in Chandrapur district, Mr Wadettiwar was earlier not even on the initial list of ministers prepared by the Congress.
