Analysis | Is Guv Koshyari-Thackeray govt relation beyond repair?

The Uddhav Thackeray-led government in Maharashtra kicked up a major row on Thursday by denying the use of a state-owned aircraft to Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari for a scheduled visit to his home state, Uttarakhand, inviting accusations of practising vendetta politics from the opposition BJP.

Media reports said the Governor arrived at Mumbai airport on Thursday at 10 am to take a flight to Dehradun but was made to wait for over two hours for permission to use the aircraft. "A state government plane was booked earlier. But, the permission did not come till the last moment," news agency PTI quoted a source close to the Governor.

"Normally, governors do not wait for the permission to come. So he sat in the aircraft. The pilot then informed the permission had not arrived yet," the source told PTI. The Governor's office then booked a seat in a private aircraft and he left for Dehradun around 12.15 pm.

Relations between Koshyari, a RSS-BJP veteran and former chief minister of Uttarakhand, and the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) have been strained ever since its inception after the short-lived government of Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar fell soon after the 2019 Assembly poll results.

Koshyari has often been accused of displaying open bias by top leaders of the ruling alliance, including Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha member and spokesperson Sanjay Raut, whether it was on the issue of holding University final year examinations during the COVID-19 lockdown, the raging row over the alleged suicide of Sushant Singh Rajput, or the latest, ongoing controversy over the Governor's refusal for months to clear the names of Thackeray government's 12 nominees for the State's legislative council or upper house.

In fact, deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar had only on Wednesday said that the government might consider taking the legal route since the Governor was refusing to take any decision on the 12 nominees for the legislative council. Thursday's incident may escalate further the already strained relations between the Governor and the State government.

Enraged BJP leaders demanded an unconditional apology from Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray for what it called an "insult to the Governor" even as the chief minister's office clarified that the Governor's office was informed well in advance that permission for use of the state-owned aircraft had not been granted.

"The government has taken a serious note of the incident and the Chief Minister has directed to fix responsibility on the concerned official at the governor's secretariat," said the CMO. But his predecessor Devendra Fadnavis, who was in Pune on Thursday, slammed the Thackeray government over the incident. "Never have we witnessed a government with such massive ego," he said.

Another senior BJP leader Sudhir Mungantiwar said the denial of permission to the state's first citizen was "a blot on Maharashtra's reputation. If this is not intentional, then the state government should suspend the official who failed to issue the flying permission in time to the governor."

Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi hinted that permission was denied because the Governor's visit was not on official purposes. But sources close to the Governor denied this, claiming he wanted to survey damage after the Uttarakhand glacier burst and was scheduled to preside over an official programme at the IAS training academy at Mussoorie on Friday.

"But his constitutional obligations are towards Maharashtra. He can take a commercial flight. There can be questions if government aircraft is used for personal reasons," the Sena MP said.

Raut too denied any politics behind the episode. "We will not resort to revenge politics. Just because he hasn't signed on 12 names for state council, we won't stop his plane from flying," he said questioning the BJP state leadership's attempts to politicise what was essentially a non-political event involving a post that is treated above politics.

The newly appointed State Congress president Nana Patole said the BJP was in the habit of playing politics everywhere. Koshyari's tenure has been controversial for several reasons including his partisan leanings and approach to the job that pitted him directly against the state government.

In October last year, the Governor wrote to Thackeray on reopening places of worship in the state after the COVID-19 lockdown was being partially lifted, asking if the Shiv Sena president's refusal had to do with him "suddenly turning secular," triggering an unsavoury exchange of words with members of the ruling alliance.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah had to intervene and told a news channel that "Koshyari could have chosen his words carefully," which led NCP chief Sharad Pawar to take potshots at the Governor, saying "anybody with self-respect would not have continued in the post."

The latest incident indicates the relations between the powers that be in Maharashtra may be beyond repair and could impact functioning of the state in coming days.