CM’s all-party meet postponed to Nov 12

MUMBAI: State chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh���s initiative to hold an all-party meeting on the issue of natives versus migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar ended in a fiasco for the government on Monday. It���s now been rescheduled for Wednesday.

The Opposition, BJP-Shiv Sena, boycotted the meeting citing different reasons, the most crucial being Mr Deshmukh himself turning up late, sources said. Mr Deshmukh reached around 45 minutes late for the meeting, thus enraging Opposition leaders, who accused the chief minister of not being serious enough on the issue.

Chastised by the Opposition���s stand, the chief minister postponed the meeting to November 12. Ironically, the chief minister has not invited the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, the party at the centre of the issue, to the meeting.

���MNS representatives should have been invited. We hold no brief for the MNS and do not approve of the violence unleashed by MNS activists. But if the government can talk to Naxals, why not invite a political party which is raising some issues, though not in an acceptable manner,��� said a BJP leader who was invited to the meeting.

The chief minister had called the meeting to evolve a consensus on the issue and take a delegation to the prime minister on measures that need to be taken to strike a balance between the welfare of locals in Maharashtra and the migrant labourers��� right to employment.

Ramdas Kadam, Shiv Sena leader and leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, accused the chief minister of being casual about the entire exercise. Before announcing the decision to boycott the meeting, Mr Kadam warned the state government against ���misleading��� the prime minister on the law & order situation in the state.

���The chief minister has claimed that all is fine with the law & order situation in the state. But that���s clearly misleading. It is not proper to mislead the prime minister,��� Mr Kadam said.