If you look beyond Maharashtra, you know how it works the same way. Only the positions of political stakeholders change. There is no immediate escape for those in the government. Time takes its own course. Public memory blurs, but it is political people who ride over public sentiment whenever they see an advantage coming their way. All governments have experienced it. Some sustained it, some didn’t, and some prevented further damage, yet suffered.

Mahayuti’s counter

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As apologies have been disputed by the Opposition and activists, what next, apart from probes, would come from the ruling parties? Preliminary findings do not address the responsibility of the people who represented the government agencies in the statute project. We haven’t heard of any suspension or transfer yet. The sculptor and structural consultant have been booked. One of them has surrendered to the police. A high-power technical committee, including the Indian Navy, state officers and independent experts, has been formed to probe the collapse. It has also been guaranteed that a new towering statue will be installed at the same site. A technical panel of bureaucrats and experts has been asked to work on a fall-proof installation.

The Opposition has applied all its brain and brawn to damage the Mahayuti government that has been trying to shift public focus by campaigning that the Congress and others in MVA are out to stop the ‘Ladki Bahin Yojana’, an ambitious welfare scheme for women, by way of seeking the court’s intervention. The campaign reached across the state on Saturday when CM Shinde and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis, in their speeches at the launch of the second phase of the scheme in Nagpur, identified the petitioner Anil Wadpalliwar as a local Congress worker.

Pawar with a difference

Deputy CM Ajit Pawar was quick to tender a public apology, as was Mumbai BJP chief Ashish Shelar. Pawar asked his cadre to repent and do penance (aatma-klesh) over the statue collapse. He reminded of a daylong fast he had undertaken to atone for his objectionable remark a decade ago. At the recent event that turned the heat on the government he is part of, Pawar stayed ‘politically correct’, while BJP and Shinde Sena offered explanations as they bore the brunt. As part of an image makeover ahead of the Assembly elections, the deputy CM continued with his yatra as scheduled and took a break to attend official events. When CM Shinde was asked about his deputy’s apology, he too said that he would kneel a hundred times before Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s statue to seek pardon for the statue’s fall. 

Dharmendra Jore is political editor, mid-day. He tweets @dharmendrajore

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