Uddhav Thackeray To Meet Sonia, PM Today

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray is scheduled to meet the interim president of the Congress party, Sonia Gandhi at 4:30 PM on Friday. The meeting comes in the wake of the Shiv Sena supremo's ambivalent stand on Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR). Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday stated that there was nothing wrong in NPR and that it was akin to a census exercise.

Before his Wednesday U-turn, the Maharashtra Chief Minister had criticised the CAA, NRC and NPR. The Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have, all along, bitterly opposed the CAA, NRC and NPR. NCP spokesperson and Maharashtra minister, Nawab Malik said that any stand on the issue should be taken only after a process of due consultation.

The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance in Maharashtra has been rocked by controversies from the first few days. In the initial days, the delays and differences were attributed to reaching a consensus on portfolio allocation. Once the task got over, observers pointed out that the NCP and Congress walked away with most of the plum portfolios including Home and Revenue.

The next big storm which rocked the MVA government boat related to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) taking over the probe into Elgar Parishad and Bhima-Koregaon violence cases. The NCP supremo, Sharad Pawar, lashed out at the Centre for stepping into the State government's purview. He was also reportedly miffed with the Maharashtra Chief Minister's passing on the case to the NIA.

Uddhav Thackeray however, clarified that Elgar Parishad and Bhima-Koregaon are two separate cases. Elgar Parishad had been taken over by NIA, but Bhima-Koregaon case remained with the state government, he added.