NAGPUR: On the second day of his visit to the city, opposition leader Ajit Pawar continued his tirade against chief minister (CM) Eknath Shinde and deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis.
Pawar said that there should be a guardian minister for every district so that the actual losses due to floods can be assessed and funds allocated.
Targeting Fadnavis in his own turf, the former deputy CM in Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government said, “When Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray was sworn in as CM, seven ministers including Shinde had taken oath, and not five as claimed by Fadnavis while speaking to media.”
Fadnavis had launched counter-attack against MVA partners after the latter flayed him and Shinde for their failure to expand the cabinet for about a month. He said when Thackeray had become CM, there were only five ministers.
Pawar, however, clarified that he was not visiting flood hit areas to “play politics”, but came here to study the grim situation and seek compensation for the farmers. He also demanded compensation to those who had lost their cattle in the calamity while terming the overall situation as “serious”.
“When Thackeray took over, no natural calamity had struck, and we did not face any big problems initially. Today, the situation is different. The heavy downpour has wreaked havoc across the state. Crops on lakhs of hectares are damaged and farmers are committing suicides. The government had failed to complete their panchnamas till date. How will it provide them seeds for resowing? None from the government is speaking about the aggrieved farmers,” he said.
Pawar said he, along with Dhananjay Munde and Rohit Pawar, recently apprised the CM of the flood situation. “I appealed to him and Fadnavis to pay attention to the farmers and expedite help to them. But there are only two ministers working in this government. It is impossible for both to look after the entire state’s affairs along with that of Mumbai. During our seven-member team of ministers initially, many of them were highly experienced leaders like Balasaheb Thorat, Jayant Patil and Chhagan Bhujbal, who were CM-level leaders and had guided the MVA government that time.”
Agreeing with Pawar, MPCC president Nana Patole said as per the Constitution of India, there should be at least 12 ministers in the cabinet, but in Maharashtra only two were taking all the decisions, which was unconstitutional. “Even after a month, there is neither cabinet nor guardian ministers appointed. This is an insult to the mandate of the people. All this is not good for democracy. They (Shinde and Fadnavis) are making fun of the people by not appointing the guardian ministers.”
Earlier, Pawar met NCP activists in the city and discussed their issues. He also met party’s office-bearers regarding preparation for upcoming civic polls. “They came up with issues regarding Samruddhi Highway and others. I told them that they should always be ready for any type of polls in advance and not to make preparations just a day before the event,” he said, adding that he would be visiting Yavatmal and Beed on Saturday.
