Clear and present danger

Realty players who made their fortunes during Ashok Chavan’s chief ministership are deeply worried. Unlike Ashok Chavan’s pro-industry policy, they fear new chief minister Prithviraj Chavan will make their lives miserable. The problem was considered serious enough for some key realty players to meet over a dinner to discuss their fate. Tellingly, among the various options they mulled was introducing transparency in their operations, as Prithviraj and his deputy Ajit Pawar have been urging them to do.

Here today

Various factions in the ruling Congress party and a section of the bureaucrats in Maharashtra consider Prithviraj Chavan a night watchman in the chief minister game. They argue that he lacks mass appeal and has knowledge of neither the regions and issues in the state nor the groups and factions within the Congress party. They think 10 Janpath gave weight to Chavan’s Mr Clean image and overlooked these lacunae.