Questions that will stay unanswered for some time

Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his deputy Devendra Fadnavis have faced questions on the legality of the current Cabinet, which has only two of them as members. File pic

In its first fortnight at the helm, the Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis sarkar has taken off amid a lot of questions that will be answered in the coming days. Political circles say that the delay in expanding the Cabinet and the deferring of the monsoon session stem from the fact that Chief Minister Shinde and his deputy Fadnavis are waiting for the cloud of uncertainty to clear - thanks to a bunch of cases in the Supreme Court that are set to be taken up and put on a certain course. A lot depends on the SC, including the answers to the questions.

Will the floor test that has been challenged by the Thackeray faction be able to muster the SC's approval? Will the Shiv Sena MLAs not be disqualified? Will the Shinde faction continue to be acknowledged as a separate group in the House or go back to the Thackeray Sena or merge with the BJP or any other party? If the BJP were to have the Shinde group merged (supposedly with itself), why did it do all this? And if all goes wrong for the BJP and Shinde, will there be a mid-term poll or yet another political surprise?

It's all about ifs and buts as of now. Apparently aware of the uncertainty, the two-member Cabinet has been questioned for its legality under a Constitutional provision for having a specific minimum number of members in the Cabinet. As usual, there is no certain opinion on it because there have been similar instances in the past. Even the erstwhile MVA government worked over a month with the number of ministers that would invite a similar criticism. The Cabinet's validity could be considered rested, provided it doesn't reach the courts through Shinde-Fadnavis opponents. Some of it has reached the Governor's office already, with the Sena asking the Raj Bhavan to not administer oaths to the ministers in the expansion. The grapevine says the first phase of expansion could take place this week.

Prince to pauper

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has emerged as one of the most affected government agencies after the transfer of power in 2019. Once richer than most, it has provided funds - supposedly as loan - to the government for implementing populist schemes and state employee salary payments. MMRDA's spend increased over a period of time as its ambit of work expanded, projects delayed and very expensive projects - the network of Metros, the Borivli-Thane tunnel, Thane coastal road, Sewri-Worli link road, etc - have been lined up to devour its coffers that were once filled with the land bank proceeds. A flagship infra agency is now at the mercy of the lenders to push the projects to completion. The returns on the investment will not begin anytime soon, because many projects are stalled for want of a financial impetus. The Shinde sarkar has set a revised deadline for the projects and also allowed MMRDA to raise a debt of Rs 60,000 crore, of which Rs 12,000 crore will be provided a state guarantee in the first phase. The total cost of MMRDA's various infra projects is Rs 1,74,940 crore. Incidentally, in the previous government, Shinde headed the department that controls MMRDA, but he has alleged time and again the intervention by his then superbosses. Whatever it may be, the projects that are necessary and have not courted any controversy must be completed within a set deadline, or else the end consumers, the public, will be forced to pay dearly for the escalated costs.

Will Rahul be here?

Congress president in-waiting Rahul Gandhi has avoided visiting Maharashtra ever since his party formed a government with the Shiv Sena and NCP. The pandemic didn't allow the state unit to hold a suitable event but efforts were made to have him here for an occasion or two, but in vain. However, the fall of the MVA government and the BJP's coming to power has revived the state leaders' hopes to have the leader here, at least for a couple of hours when the party's ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra', a five-month-long march across 12 states covering a distance of roughly 3,500 km, is taken up. Scheduled to start from October 2, the yatra is expected to begin early to avoid clashes with the Assembly polls in some important states. Though it is still not clear whether Rahul will lead the yatra, every state Congress unit would want him to walk a stretch with them. The Maharashtra unit is also wishing for the same as it needs a voice to galvanise them into action.

Dharmendra Jore is political editor, mid-day. He tweets @dharmendrajore
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