Intense lobbying begins for 7 Maharashtra RS Seats

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

special report 

Intense lobbying begins for 7 Maharashtra RS Seats

Fadnavis tops the chart of probables, Pawar sure to return

Dhoot, Husain Dalwai may miss the bus

Harish Gupta

New Delhi, Feb 5

Quiet but intense lobbying has begun for seven Rajya Sabha seats from Maharashtra falling vacant. Given the composition of 288 member state Assembly, BJP will bag three Rajya Sabha seats while the remaining four will go to the Sena-NCP-Congress combine. If sources are to be believed, the NCP is asking the Shiv Sena to spare an extra Rajya Sabha seat for it. The Congress has 44 MLAs in the House and can easily win one seat.

Of the seven retiring MPs, the return of NCP supremo Sharad Pawar is a foregone conclusion. The NCP will take a decision on its second candidate only after Sena's green signal. Thus, the future of NCP's Majeed Memon hangs in the balance.

The BJP leadership has assured Ramdas Athawale, Minister of State for Social Justice & Empowerment of his re-election though his RPI doesn't have the numbers. But uncertainty continues about the remaining two BJP candidates.

Highly placed sources in the BJP say that there is an outside chance of Devendra Fadnavis being brought to Delhi through Rajya Sabha and inducted into the Union Ministry. The former Maharashtra Chief Minister is a blue-eyed boy of the Prime Minister and wants to use him in national politics as the party is not keen to destabilize the Uddhav Thackeray government, at least for now. But no final decision has been taken. Fadnavis has been in Delhi for campaigning and held talks with members of the party high command. Amar Shankar Sable, sitting BJP MP is also a contender for being renominated for second term. The name of Ajay Sancheti, a former RS MP, is also being mentioned. One also hears that a noted economist may be brought to Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra. Uday Raje Bhonsle who quit his Lok Sabha to join the BJP, is also in the reckoning.

It is also learnt that Shiv Sena sitting MP Rajkumar Dhoot is unlikely to make a cut this time. But the intense battle is going on in the Congress for the lone Rajya Sabha seat. The sitting MP Husain Dalwai is not to be renominated and many are in the fray including Rajni Patel, Rajiv Satav, Milind Deora, Rajiv Shukla and Mukul Wasnik. Prithviraj Chavan is also keen to return to national politics quitting his MLA seat.

The biennial polls will be held early next month.

Ends 

Modi brings cheers to Maha, Fadnavis smiles

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Modi brings cheers to Maha, Fadnavis smiles

￭ All 62 projects amounting to Rs. 3.53 lakh crore on track  ￭ Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal, Prabhu working overtime

Exclusive

Harish Gupta New Delhi, Apr. 12 Maharashtra never had it so good. The speed with which long pending infrastructure projects have been fast-tracked and being implemented in the State, was never witnessed before. On the Centre's radar were 62 projects amounting to ` 3.53 lakh crore. Of these, 32 projects worth ` 1.09 lakh crores are now under implementation and have been taken off the PM's radar for monitoring. However, another 30 major projects amounting to `2.44 lakh crores are being directly monitored by Prime Minister's Projects Monitoring Group (PMG). The PM is directly monitoring these projects as these are inter-ministerial and inter-state issues. There are projects which have some last mile issues. Therefore, the PM has decided to keep it under the PMG as he doesn't want any time over run or cost over run. A top official at the PMG said that these projects require constant monitoring at the PM's level because of their size and related issues. This official said barring a couple of them, most of the 62 projects will be completed during the next two to three years. ￭ 32 Projects under                     Projects                    Cost implementation                                                         (Rs.Crores) CIVIL AVIATION                             2                           26574 PETROLEUM                                  5                       13014.37 POWER                                           9                        30170.57 ROAD TRANS. & HIGHWAYS        7                        5309.36 RAILWAYS                                      5                        13262.87 STEEL                                             1                           187.33 SHIPPING                                       2                            7883 URBAN DEVLOPMENT                 1                           12500                                   Total            32                       108901.5 PM Monitor"s 30 projects           Projects                Cost                                                                             (Rs.Crores) COMMERCE                                 2                        21300 COAL                                            1                         1010.71 POWER                                        8                         35213.02 PETROLEUM                               1                          5700 ROAD & HIGHWAYS                  9                           54965.34 RAILWAYS                                  3                          80177 SHIPPING                                   2                          1609 URBAN DEVELOPMENT            4                         44093                                         Total   30                       244068.07 The PM's Project Monitoring Group (PMG) tracks all stalled investment projects, both in the public and private sectors. Its task is to remove implementation bottlenecks in these projects. The PMG has put 768 projects under its lens across the country. Of these, the PMG already cleared 378 projects totaling ` 13.29 lakh crore. But it's the Maharashtra which topped the rank with clearances and implementation of 62 projects totaling ` 3.53 lakh crores. Maharashtra has the distinction of perhaps the only state in the country which has received maximum support of the Modi government in project clearance and fast-tracking them. Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has also been doggedly pursuing pending projects with various Central ministries & departments.  Another reason of Maharashtra achieving its objective is that surface transport & shipping minister Nitin Gadkari, railway minister Suresh Prabhu and power minister Piyush Goyal went out of their way to help the State. All these ministers belong to Maharashtra. In addition, environment & forest minister Prakash Javadekar also helped in clearing all environment hurdles crated during the UPA regime. The work on these projects in power, surface transport, railways, metro rail and other key areas are at the various stages of completion. It was found that at least 10 projects have been delayed for 7-12 years. Modi is determined that delays in project completion is a thing of the past and there is no cost over-run either.

RSS urges caution, wants Sena to stay in alliance

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Harish Gupta
New Delhi, Oct. 13 :

The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) has signalled that nothing should be done to escalate tensions between the BJP and Shiv Sena and the alliance should continue in Maharashtra.

The RSS intervention came after State BJP leadership upped the ante by declaring that Maharashtra is not a banana republic and Shiv Sena asserting not to allow any activity promoting Indo-Pak bonhomie; be it cricket, music, cultural relationship or otherwise. The major face off led to speculations that Shiv Sena may now walk out of the Fadnavis government and the alliance may go for a six.
 

It now transpires that RSS leadership conveyed to the top BJP leaders in Maharashtra and Delhi that nothing should be done to weaken the NDA and the state government should be sensitive to the issues of concerns.
Obviously, a large section in the RSS also feels that no useful purpose will be served by promoting public display of bonhomie between India and Pakistan particularly when the Modi government has insisted that Pakistan should follow the UFA resolution and commit to contain terrorism.
 

The RSS is also upset why the State government allowed the holding of such a function in the first place. The RSS per se is not inclined to interfere in the day-today functioning of the governments. But it would certainly like that governments supported by it should adhere to the basic philosophy. It was only after the RSS's intervention that BJP and Shiv Sena backed off and agreed to continue with their "uncomfortable co-existence"