What did Pawar do to resolve the drought issue when he was holding important posts in the state and centre asks Patil.
Political parties are busy indulging in blame game over the drought issue. At a time when the Congress-NCP has been criticising the Fadnavis government for its failure to resolve the drought problem senior Congress leader Balasaheb Vikhe-Patil has held NCP Supremo Sharad Pawar responsible for the famine issue. According to Patil, Pawar was never serious about addressing this problem when he was serving as the agriculture minister. He also added that the erstwhile government wanted the state to remain under drought for a long period of time so that they can cash in on this crisis and derive political mileage out of it.
He said, “Sharad Pawar had held the chief ministerial post thrice, and had served as the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha. Pawar also had served as agricultural minister for 10 years but he has failed to solve the drought problem of the state. The situation has now become so worse that now he has to organise a protest to raise this issue. What did Pawar do when he was holding important posts in the state and centre?”
Patil also blamed Pawar for diverting water from Marathwada to Baramati and trying to create regional conflicts in the state. The rivalry between Pawar and former Balasaheb Vikhe-Patil is an open secret in Maharashtra. Vikhe-Patil was close to the late Shankarrao Chavan, perceived as Pawar’s rival.
Even though the Congress-NCP had ruled Maharashtra for 15 years but it had not taken any steps to provide relief to the drought hit farmers in the state. The NCP leaders had committed irregularities to the tune of 70,000 crore in execution of various irrigation projects as the land under irrigation has gone by just 0.1 per cent in the state.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Shiv Sena alliance has criticised the inaction of the previous government, led by the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) for failure in boosting irrigation potential and stepping up water conservation.
On the other hand, Pawar said that parties should refrain from indulging in politics over the drought issue and must come forward to resolve it. He demanded that the state government should start cattle camps in all the drought affected areas of the state and not restrict them only to three districts.
Besides, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray will visit some of the drought-hit villages on September 11 and 12. He has asked the party ministers and district leaders to step up relief work instead of conducting ‘drought tourism’.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray criticised leaders of both the BJP-Sena alliance and Congress-NCP for visiting drought-affected villages, saying the priority should be in providing relief urgently.
