Last month a ‘letter bomb’, whose apparent target was chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, created a tumult in Congress circles in Mumbai and Delhi. This was around the same time alliance partner NCP was raising the issue of need for better coordination at the state-level, training its gun on the CM. The letter had 43 names and 39 signatures with 13 demands to be discussed at a meeting with the party high command and CM. Out of the 13, few had anything to do with Mumbai, but the letter had names of nine Mumbai MLAs, and five of them had their signatures on it.

The MLAs conveniently ignored the fact that the CM already had a special daylong meeting with them barely two months ago at Sahyadri state guesthouse, Malabar Hill. During the meeting, held on May 3, as many as 363 points concerning the city were raised by 38 legislators. Barring a few, almost all the issues were related to housing and urban development departments as the city is more keen on TDR, FSI, redevelopment, MHADA and MMRDA than matters concerning tourism potential of the metro, security of its citizens and their properties, transport woes of the metropolis, forestland, public health and environment etc.