The strained relations between Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and late Gopinath Munde’s daughter and senior Minister Pankaja Munde came into the open on Sunday, after he divested of her of crucial Water Conservation portfolio in a reshuffle he undertook late on Saturday night.
Making no bones of her disappointment about her stripped of the water conservation portfolio, a sulking Pankaja tweeted, “Reaching Singapore on Monday, there is Water leaders’ Summit I was invited but now won’t attend since I am not Minister in-charge”.
An apparently surprised Fadnavis sought to placate her by swiftly tweeting back, “Of course you must attend WlS 2016. As a senior Minister you would be representing the Government of Maharashtra”.
However, the Chief Minister’s placatory tweet did not seem to have had any effect on her. For, she had not responded to Fadnavis’ tweet till late in the evening.
The divestment of the Water Conservation portfolio angered Pankaja’s supporters. Her supporters burnt the effigy of Fadnavis at Pathardi in Ahmednagar. The motley crowd of her supporters that made bonfire of Fadnavis’ effigy was headed by a local BJP Yuva Morcha president Mukund Garje.
Thirty-six-year-old Pankaja, who has been divested of the water conservation and Employment Guarantee Scheme portfolios, is understood to have paid price for a fierce controversy she had landed early this year over her “insensitive” act of taking selfies in a drought-affected region.
It may be recalled that Pankaja had come in for a severe flak for taking selfies in the backdrop of Manjara river where de-silting work in the drought-hit Marathwada in April this year.
She had tried to defend her act, by saying, “The photograph that I took in 45 degree heat was in appreciation of the excellent de-silting work done at the Sai Bhandara. There was absolutely excitement there. What I did was borne out of satisfaction that I derived from what I saw,” Pankaja said, reacting to criticism from various quarters”
Pankaja, however, retains the portfolios of Rural Development and Women & Child development.
The Chief Minister’s decision to give the water conservation portfolio to Shinde should be seen in the light of the BJP-led saffron alliance Government’s ambitious plan of making 25,000 villages drought free in five years.
The biggest gainer in the Cabinet reshuffle is senior Minister Chandrakant Patil, who enjoys the support of the RSS bosses. A two-term MlC, who hails from Kolhapur, has been given additional Revenue, Relief and Rehabilitation portfolios — earlier held by Eknath Khadse who resigned last month over allegations of corruption, land grab and alleged nexus with Dawood Ibrahim. He already holds the Public and Works Department portfolio.
like Pankaja, senior Minister Vinod Tawde is another loser. Tawade, who has faced flak from the Opposition for the “bogus” engineering degree that he allegedly possesses and purported irregularities in a shelved Rs 191 crore fire extinguishers for ZP-run schools in the state – lost out medical education portfolio to Girish Mahajan.