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ShareMumbai: Even 12 days after the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance came back to power in the state, the problem of ministry allocation is still seeking a final solution.
The senior leadership of both the Congress and the NCP spent all of Sunday trying to break the deadlock on portfolio division. None of the options were satisfactory to the alliance partners, delaying the swearing-in ceremony -- and the business of running the government -- further.
Neither party wants to give in. The NCP may have 20 seats less than the Congress (82) but that doesn't seem to have tempered its demands. If anything, the NCP is proving to be a tough negotiator, leaving the majority party in a dilemma.
While sources said that the NCP is willing to accept 20 ministerial berths to the Congress's 22, it is on the condition that status quo be allowed to continue on key ministries. This means, home (a portfolio Ashok Chavan was keen on holding), finance and energy should remain in the NCP's control.
In exchange, the Congress wants the rural development and tribal welfare ministries, which are aligned with the party's pro-poor positioning. It is also their belief that they have a greater responsibility to deliver in rural Maharashtra and to the tribal masses.
But, here too the NCP is driving a hard bargain by insisting on holding the ministry of urban development, and that of social welfare and justice.
This puts the chief minister-designate -- who currently holds the urban development portfolio and is in no hurry to relinquish it -- in a spot.
A senior NCP leader engaged in the negotiations said, "If the Congress is so worried about the rural and tribal (portfolios), we are ready to honour their feelings. But let them part with urban development and social welfare and justice."
