Losers’ cabins have few takers at Mantralaya

No one knows what to say in the loser’s locker room, said American boxer Muhammad Ali. Some ministers in the state government seem to agree with Ali’s statement, but there is a little variation: they don’t want to stay in losers’ rooms.

There are at least four cabins in Mantralaya and a couple of government bungalows, which are vacant just because they were occupied by ministers who either lost the elections or were expelled from the ministry.

In the previous cabinet that was dissolved in October last year, the cabins were occupied by Anees Ahmed, Ramesh Bang, Nana Panchbuddhe and Shobha Bachchav. All four of them lost the election. And that is the reason that no minister in the present government is ready to accept the offer to occupy their cabins.

In fact, two of the cabins, which belonged to Bang and Panchbuddhe, are on the sixth floor that also has cabins of the chief minister and the deputy chief minister.

The cabin occupied by Bang is believed to be more jinxed, as his predecessor Satish Chaturvedi was suddenly dropped from the ministry in December 2008.

Similarly, Panchbuddhe’s predecessor Dharmarao Atram had to resign after his name surfaced in the Chinkara poaching case in July 2008.

Likewise, the fourth floor cabin occupied by former minority minister Anees Ahmed has no takers because he was defeated in the election. “Vilasrao Deshmukh [former chief minister] never liked him,” said an official.

When minister of state for home Ramesh Bagwe was allotted a fifth floor cabin, earlier occupied by Siddharam Mhetre, he changed its layout completely. “He even changed the entrance of the cabin according to the Vastu Shastra,” said an official.

Varsha Gaikwad, the minister of state for medical education, requested the chief minister’s office to change her sixth floor cabin occupied earlier by Shobha Bachchav, who had also lost the election.

Besides, a plush Shivneri bungalow at Malabar Hill is also believed to unlucky as its two successive occupants — Satish Chaturvedi and Ravishet Patil — had to lose their ministries.