Nagpur: You will feel stumped when you hear this or read it!! Believe it or not but it is true that, ‘Varsha,’ the official residence of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in Mumbai, hosts personal parties or bashes (“Sneh Bhojan”), regularly. The Chief Minister Fadnavis had himself thrown a treat to a select circle on the occasion of Deepawali!! The information was shared by none other than the Public Relations Officer (PRO) at CM’s Secretariat based at “Varsha” Amol Patankar who is also Section Officer. Patankar shared the information to an RTI query posed by a journalist Vikrant Joshi.
The scribe Vikrant Joshi had on November 9, 2015 fired the RTI query to the CM’s Secretariat seeking information on Fadnavis’ Diwali ‘treat’ to a host of family members and journalists at his official residence ‘Varsha’ in Mumbai. Furnishing the information on Joshi’s RTI query, the Public Relations Officer at CM’s Secretariat Amol Patankar ‘accepted’ the facts. However, further shared that the Diwali bash was absolutely personal one and not a single penny was spent from State coffers.
However, if the reply is dug deeply, the claim of PRO Patankar could be termed ‘laughable.’ How could a programme held at ‘Varsha’ be called personal one? This question has been raised by the journalist Vikrant Joshi. ‘Varsha’ Bungalow is official residence of Chief Minister and any programme organized at the bungalow could only be the official one in the capacity of Chief Minister. If the personal line is true then anybody can organize ‘personal programmes’ at ‘Varsha’ Bungalow and poke their noses in the day-to-day work of the Chief Minister, apprehended the scribe Joshi.
Now that eyebrows are being raised, it would be wise on the part of the Chief Minister to clear the air, sooner the better.
Rajeev Ranjan Kushwaha ( rajeev.nagpurtoday@g
