MVA extends power-sharing to temple trusts and boards

NCP legislator Ashutosh Kale to head Shirdi temple trust, while Congress will be at the helm of affairs at Pandharpur’s Vitthal shrine

The Maha Vikas Aghadi has taken a step forward to share power in the state-run temple trusts, corporations and boards. The alliance’s coordination committee decided to give the Shirdi Temple Trust chairmanship to the Nationalist Congress Party while the Pandharpur’s Vitthal Temple Trust will be headed by the Congress. The formula for other bodies has also been finalised, said sources.

There are at least 150 corporations, boards, commissions and authorities in the state where political appointments are made. The boards are dissolved after the government’s term gets over. The MVA hadn’t decided on the sharing formula even after spending 18 months in power creating restlessness in their rank and file which looked forward to political appointments. The sharing formula the MVA’s coordination committee decided on Tuesday to get appointments done as early as possible is seen as a positive development amid talks of this government’s instability.

In the previous government, the BJP and Sena had shared the positions and also given representation to smaller allies. Sena was given the city’s Siddhivinayak Temple Trust in the past government and it has kept its leadership with the party’s Aadesh Bandekar. The party is likely to retain the president’s post of the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) and share the authority’s various boards with allies.

Some boards are headed by the minister in-charge of the respective departments, but most of these bodies have the posts of chairman and vice-chairman that are given the status of a cabinet minister or minister of state, and a dozen executive members/directors. Infrastructure bodies like MHADA and CIDCO are keenly vied for by the parties. MLAs who could not be accommodated in the council of ministers, the leaders who have lost the polls and people working in the party organisation are appointed to these state-run bodies that work in infrastructure, finance, urban development, the welfare of various sections of the society, cooperations, etc.

It was learnt that the NCP’s Ashutosh Kale will be the chairman of Shirdi Temple Trust, while Sena’s Bhai Mirlekar will be the vice-chairman. The Congress and NCP have been given six seats each in the executive committee and Sena five. Congress hasn’t decided nominees for the Pandharpur trust yet. The allies will come back with the names for other bodies in the next meeting. In the previous non-BJP governments, the Congress had the Shirdi trust while the NCP had Pandharpur.

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