'Clean Prithviraj too good for CM post'

"Baba (Prithviraj Chavan) is an intellectual person. He has a clean image and this will create problems for him," says Punjabrao Chavan (84), a cousin of the newly appointed chief minister. "Frankly speaking, he may not fit in as the chief minister because he lacks the political skills required to 'manage' the cooperative sector lobby, which is very strong in western Maharashtra."


The Chavan family in Karad, a small town in Satara district about 150 km from Pune, was flooded with greetings from morning yesterday, after the Congress high command decided Prithviraj Chavan would be the new chief minister of the state.

While celebrations were low-key in Karad, 25 km away in Kumbhargaon ufffd the village of Prithviraj's parents ufffd the selection of the new chief minister was celebrated with the distribution of sweets.

"The third generation of our family is now in the service of the Congress party, and we have done this loyally since Jawaharlal Nehru's era. Around 1999, we faced severe criticism from many politicians known to us because Prithviraj declined Sharad Pawar's offer to get into his newly founded Nationalist Congress Party," says Punjabrao. "Prithviraj is a good administrator and believes in rising above factionalism and petty politics."

Punjabrao feels his cousin will now have to use all his skills and more to keep in a good mood the cooperative sector, which is the power backbone of western Maharashtra politics.

Sugar lobby
"All these western Maharashtra leaders have an iron grip on the sugar and other cooperative sectors, and they are on one side, Prithviraj on the other. Now as chief minister he will have to take all such people along, which surely is a challenging job," says Punjabrao. "A clean person like Prithviraj will not fit into the system as the chief minister when the entire political system is unclean. State politics today has been reduced to corruption and backstabbing, so an intellectual like him should ideally not have become the chief minister."

Punjabrao was so concerned about Baba that he spoke to him when his name was doing the rounds as a candidate for the chief minister's post.

"When his name came up as a probable for the chief minister's post, I personally called him up to ask him what was in his mind," says Punjabrao. "At that point, he made it clear that if the party high command asked him to be the chief minister, he would not refuse."

A visionary
For Indrajit Chavan (35), the nephew of Prithviraj, Baba's new appointment is well deserved. He fondly recalls how his uncle got into politics.

"In 1991 Baba won from the Karad Lok Sabha constituency. I remember those days well. The then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had called him on April 26 around 4 am and informed him that his ticket had been confirmed," says Indrajit. "Rajiv Gandhi was impressed with Prithviraj after meeting him at an exhibition and later requested him to join politics."

Indrajit also speaks of the vision his uncle possesses, saying it has contributed to his rise. "Baba had returned from the US and started his company in Delhi, and we used to visit his office. He used to insist that we learn computers and have a good command on English," says Indrajit. "Twenty years ago he had the vision to know India would progress only if the youth mastered these two things."

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