The customary meeting hosted by the state government between the state’s Members of Parliament (MP) took place last Thursday, in preparation of the budget session at the Centre, which is scheduled to begin on February 21. The objective of the meeting convened by the chief minister was to appraise the MPs about matters of the state, so that they can raise them in the parliament sessions with the concerned union ministers.

As usual, the list of issues rolled out by the state government was large, containing 50 different agendas concerning the maximum city as well as remote parts of the state. Prithviraj Chavan and his cabinet colleagues were present along with a battery of senior officials. The meeting was attended by 37 MPs out of the 67 (48 from the Lok Sabha and 19 from the Rajya Sabha). The attendance at these meetings is rarely satisfactory and seldom goes beyond 40.