Will Shiv Sena Benifit from Separation? Hardly!

Even though Shiv Sena has announced that it would fight the coming Assembly and Lok Sabha elections on its own, the challenge is not an easy one for the party. Shiv Sena has a herculean task ahead of it to attract middle-class and urban voters in the state who have turned to Bharatiya Janata Party lately. The party has set for itself an ambitious goal of winning 25 seats (out of a total 48) in Lok Sabha and 150 seats (out of a total 288) in the Assembly elections that are widely expected to happen before the schedule.

The war-cry given by Shiv Sena is not an easy one for the 50-year old party. It has to achieve exceptionally good performance in Mumbai, Vidarbha and Western Maharashtra regions. The party passed a resolution not to align with the BJP and go solo in the polls to be held next year. The National Executive meeting of the party was held coincidng with birth anniversary of Balasaheb Thackeray, the founder of the party.

BJP and Shiv Sena took advantage of resentment against the then ruling Congress and Nationalist Congress Party during the last Lok Sabha elections when they fought together and Assembly elections that they fought separately. However, BJP had made inroads in all regions except Konkan riding on the Modi wave. Vidarbha, especially Nagpur, is BJP's bastion and eroding the party's base there is a gigantic task.

This time around, political observers have placed their bets on Lok Sabha and Assembly elections being held together. So winning Vidarbha being ruled out, Shiv Sena has to focus on Mumbai, Western Maharashtra and Marathwada. In Mumbai, it cannot gain victory relying solely on the Marathi Manus agenda. Besides, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena is there, alive and kicking, to eat into its Marathi votes. It has had a glimpse of the reality last year during the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation election. On the contrary, north Indians, Gujarati etc. voters seems to vote en masse to BJP.

This is why Uddhav Thackeray spoke about the unadulterated Hindutva during the rally where he announced his decision to go solo. Thackeray has not forgotten how he had to sweat it out while winning back the BMC, the real power house of Shiv Sena. The party, with 63 MLAs and 18 MPs, is an ally of the BJP in the state and Centre but it wants to protect its own identity. That is why it is routinely attacking the BJP-led governments at the Centre and in the state over a variety of issues--from demonetisation and GST to the plight of farmers and cross-border assaults by Pakistan. Thackeray's announcement of contesting elections outside Maharashtra should be seen in this light. 

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Shiv Sena Is a Tiger Turned Tortoise - Ajit Pawar

With his days in opposition, Nationalist Congress Party leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar is making most of this opportunity. Speaking in Jalana in Marathwada region, he took potshots on Shiv Sena, a party that is sharing power with Bharatiya Janata Party with an extreme awkwardness. Putting his finger at Shiv Sena where it hurts most, Pawar said that Shiv Sena was a tiger during Balasaheb Thackeray’s days but has been since been reduced to be a tortise.

Shiv Sena has not become even a sheep or a hare, but tortoise that thrusts its neck and doing nothing, the leader said. A march was organized at Jafarabad in Jalana district as part of NCP’s campaign Halla Bol, that seeks to attack the ruling BJP for its alleged failures on all fronts, under the leadership of Pawar Jr. The statement came during the meeting after the march.
Targetting Shiv Sena for its precarious situation, Ajit Pawar said that the party threatened a hundred times during three years to leave the ruling alliance, but it couldn't resist the lure of power that has come to its way after full 15 years!

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Voices of Dissent in Congress

Are They Serious Enough?

The voices of dissent have started to rise from the Congress party in Maharashtra. One of the first leader to raise the tone is Shivajirao Patil Nilangekar, who is enraged over non-inclusion in the candidates selection committee. Nilangekar is the former chief minister of Maharashtra and comes from Nilanga in the Latur district.

PTI quotes him as saying : I met Congress president Sonia Gandhi recently and apprised her of the situation. I pointed out that neither myself nor former MPCC president N M Kamble were appointed to the panel, which has several less deserving people on board.

Nilangekar is one of those old breeds in Congress who still avow Indira Gandhi's name. He was the chief minister of Maharashtra in 1985-86. He had to resign after a scam in which he was accused of influencing the results of MBBS examination in which his daughter was a candidate. Since then, he was relegated to oblivion and could never make a comeback in the state politics. In the new age of professional politics, he is a rare type of leader. In the 2004 Lok Sabha election, he fought against his daughter-in-law, who was contesting from a BJP ticket. And he lost it! So it is surprising that he is returning and even more surprising is the fact that media is taking him seriously!

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Aurangabad to Go dry on

measure aimed to avert Dengue menace

The current rage in Maharashtra is H1N1 flu which is still called swine flu even though the World Health Organisation has recommended not to do so. With the casualties on account of this disease touching 100, it is hardly surprising that the media and people alike are obsessed with it. But then there are other diseases also which are claiming lives of citizens. These killer diseases are here each year but this year they are being relegated to the oblivion.

One such disease is dengue. The killer fever has already plagued Maharashtra with many patients in Pimpri Chinchwad. The municipal corporation there is fighting hard against the disease. Fortunately, Pune is not so much troubled by it. However, other cities in the state are not so lucky. One of the prominent cities in Marathwada, Aurangabad, is finding it hard to cope with the problem in addition to Swine Flu. To find a solution, the municipal corporation of Aurangabad has decided to observe a Dry Day in city.

The municipal corporation of Aurangabad has appealed to the citizens to keep their house dry on September …... the measures to be followed on the day include, throwing out all the water stored in house for more than five days. It is also advised to keep all the utensils in house dry at least for four to five hours. The civic body aims to keep the breeding of mosquitoes to minimum through these measures. It is one of the bold attempts in recent history and goes beyond the usual measures of spraying insecticides etc.

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The theater that is Maharashtra-Part 1

All kind of political manoeuvring is taking place in Maharashtra. With assembly election barely a month later and code of conduct in force, most of the dealings are taking place in back room discussions. This time the theatre is set in so fashion that one is having a feast of drama. There all players of all hues and colours as well as numbers in the fray. So nobody actually knows what will be the ending of this play.

In the Lok Sabha elections, it was expected that ruling Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) will get a drubbing and Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will come out handsomely. But the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena played a perfect spoilsport to the Sena-BJP alliance. The result was that Congress emerged as frontrunner with 17 seats out of 48. Even though it shares power with NCP in state, Congress was in cloud seven when NCP suffered heavy losses managing to get only eight seats. Buoyed with this victory, Congress is bargaining for more seats this time for assembly elections. NCP being at receiving end is finding it hard to preserve its quota of seats at the level of year 2004. Interestingly, even though NCP had contested less seats last time, its tally of winning candidates was more than Congress in the assembly. Obviously enough, Congress does not want a repeat of that episode. Therefore it is trying to browbeat its rival-turned-ally in conceding more seats.

Upto now, elections in the state were limited to these four parties. But this time around, there are two-three more players who can give these parties a run for there money. Actually, MNS has already proved its mettle by eating up a large chunk of votes in Lok Sabha elections in April. However, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) could not prove to be a worthy threat to the main players. Its political TRP was no doubt high but the performance on ground was almost invisible. Even in constituencies like Pune, where it touted its social engineering formula as its main plank by fielding D. S. Kulkarni and every political analyst was putting his bet on the candidate, it failed miserably to prove up to expectations. MNS has a large base of Shiv Sena activists and its Marathi Manoos agenda is already making waves in the people. I have seen it in places like Marathwada that people are ready to trust MNS and anticipate a good performance from the hitherto new party. However, the people also have too many complaints about the party not living to the expectation. It is not uniform in its activities and it seems as going into a slumber at times. Moreover, some recent incidents have put the party activists in a bad light. Accusations like extortion, kidnapping, rape and threatening have been levelled against the partymen, cases being already filed against them. Raj Thackerey, chief of MNS has shown no clear sign of dissociating himself or his party from the dirty elements. How this will affect the prospect of the party in election is better left to the people. I am never ready to make a pronouncement in this matter, because the Indian public is very tolerant when it comes to electing their representative. There is no surety that a person with heaps of criminal records or corruption charges will not get elected.

As for BSP, failure is not new to the party. It is contesting elections for over two decades in the state and has yet to make any mark. Still, it has an appreciable endurance which can help it win a handful of seats. In the October elections though, BSP's ship might sail in rough weather as various Dalit parties with splinter Left groups have joined hands against Congress_NCP as well as Shiv Sena-BJP. This new front is to address the same audience to that of BSP hence there might be a clash of interest between them. Major constituents of new front come from various groups of Republican Party. The reason for their coming together was defeat of candidates like Ramdas Athavale and Rajendra Gawai, who have hitherto earned their bread and butter by aligning themselves with Congress or NCP leadership. A main drawback of this new front is that it has only leaders and no workers. Even the front is planning to contest all 288 seats, it has hardly any chance of winning at more than a dozen seats. That a leader like Dr. Prakash Ambedkar is not in the front further limits the prospects of the front.

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Rains In Marathwada

After the lull, the storm. There is a slight variation in this saying for Marathwada region as the area has received satisfactory rainfall in the last two days. The rains were absent for most of the monsoon season in Marathwada like other areas in Maharashtra. This started taking different turn in last week. The areas has received good rains in the whole week so much so that water scarcity seems to have taken backseat in major cities.

Just two weeks ago, Marathwada had 47 per cent less rainfall than average annual rainfall. According to met department, the southwest monsoon has been vigorous in Marathwada and interiors of north Karnataka. In Nanded district, the rainfall till now 325.79 mm. Most of the rivers like Asna, Godavari, Sita and Painganga in district are flowing with full vigour. Even doors of the Vishnupuri dam which provide drinking water to Nanded city has been raised up to release the water. Just a month ago, the same dam had to be filled with water from Jaikwadi dam.

In Latur district the rainfall is recorded at 187 mm. The average rainfall in the district is over 50 percent of the annual average. The situation is almost same in Jalna, Beed, Parbhani and Aurangabad. In Aurangabad, till now 410 mm of rain is recorded including 4 mm till 8:30 AM today while in Parbhani it is 420 mm.

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It is Deshmukh vs Pawar in Maharashtra

As the state assembly elections are nearing in Maharashtra, the political situation is taking very interesting turns. For a journalist, watching political developments unfolding is always a feast to the eyes. This time also the situation is no different. Congress and Nationalist Congress Party, who have shared the power for almost 10 years now are at loggerheads and opposition parties are also not in a better position. NCP has just completed 10 years of its existence and it has evolved from the Congress itself. In the last assembly elections, it managed to wrestle more seats than Congress and eventually claimed Chief Ministership. It was last moments at New Delhi deals that ensured five years rule of a Congressman at the helm.

That man being Vilasrao Deshmukh, he managed the state for four full years and could have continued had that fateful attack on Indian soil did not take in November 08. Deshmukh had to go from the political power from he is still an important man in the affairs of Congress party. He has a long rivalry with Sharad Pawar, who heads NCP starting from 1990 when Pawar was chief minister (then in Congress party) and Deshmukh was state industries minister. Deshmukh had rebelled (alongwith) Sushilkumar Shinde, currently union power minister and Ramrao Adik, who is nowhere in picture now. With his political acumen, Pawar survived that revolt but it created a permanent acrimony between two leaders. In the ensuing elections in 1995, Pawar was instrumental in the defeat of Deshmukh from the Latur constituency. It was so articulate a masterstroke that Deshmuk had to leave the Congress party only to return in 1997.

By 1999 assembly elections, things had changed so much. Shiv Sena & Bharatiya Janata Party alliance was in power and Congress was in the opposition benches. Just before the assembly elections, Pawar had left Congress and formed NCP. The two parties fought the elections separately and were surprised themselves when alliance was thrown out of power. The arithmetic of the seats forced two parties to come together, fulfilling Deshmukh's dream of becoming CM one day. But for him, his tenure from 1999 to 2004 was like 'Sleeping With the Enemy.' NCP tried every trick in the book to minimise Congress' reach and influence while strengthening its position manifold. Constant games and ploys by NCP reaped benefits in 2004 elections when NCP managed 71 seats while Congress could get 69 seats.

Surely Deshmukh did not forget this history when he, fresh from the victory in recently held Lok Sabha election, demanded that Congress should go alone in assembly elections. With NCP's influence fast eroding, Congressmen are toeing his line. Western Maharashtra is NCP's stronghold and when it could not get more than three seats (two of which are that of Pawar and his daughter Supriya Sule), Congressman do not see any reward in forging an alliance with the party. Pawar's image being a coy politician, few leaders in the state are comfortable with working with him. Leaders like Digvijay Singh are putting pressure on the leader with almost a statement a day asking to merge NCP in Congress. Chief minister Ashok Chavan seems to play no role in either joining hands or dissociating. He has given himself to the dictate from New Delhi and will move as per so called High Command's orders.

That brings the wrestling to Deshmukh and Pawar only. These two leaders are face to face even though Pawar is largely low profile owing to recent dribble in elections. Pawar had turned the side owing to caste equations. He had played Maratha card so cunningly to take NCP ahead of all parties. This time, Maratha organisations are already enraged over non-fulfilment of their demands. These organisations were an important aid in Pawar's political calculations, always providing a solid voter base the strongman. Also, Pawar's excessive reliance on these organisations have delineated other castes resulting in the unification of these castes. This was the primary reason why Gopinath Munde won with thumping majority in Beed and this is the reason why NCP could get only 8 Lok Sabha seats from among 48 seats. Pawar is also experiencing a deficit of support from Dalits and Muslims. The new mega alliance of splinter Dalit groups has added salt to the injury. Ramdas Athavale's defeat in Shirdi constituency was seen as renewed expression of Pawar's back-stab politics.

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FLight to Popularity

Maharashtra Govt Tries to Make Hay While Sun Shines

Ahead of assembly elections, the Maharashtra government seems to be in a hurry. Barely a day after announcing some major decisions, the state cabinet yesterday decided to open its coffer for more spending. Prominent among these decisions was to privatise five airports in the state. The government might have thought that people will fail to notice the significance of choice of these airports. Three of these airports fall in the assembly segments of three prominent leaders of ruling party.

According to cabinet decision, privatisation of airports at Latur, Baramati, Osmanabad, Nanded, and Yavatmal, which are currently operated by Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) will be done by Reliance Airports Developer Ltd. (RAD) For airports at Yavatmal, Nanded and Latur, RAD had quoted Rs 27 Crores while for other two airports it was Rs 36 Crores. In lieu of this amount, RAD will get custody of land measuring 601.56 hectares with additional properties for 95 years.

"Reliance Airport Developer bid of Rs 27 crore for Nanded and Latur and Rs 36 crore for Baramati and Osmanabad airports were highest and MIDC was granted permission to accept it," an official release said.

It is to be noted here that Nanded is home constituency of chief minister Ashok Chavan. Likewise Latur is home to former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and Baramati is home to union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar. While Chavan and Deshmukh belong to Congress party, Pawar heads Nationalist Congress Party. That these airports were chosen for the privatisation points to the ploy of the state leadership as much as possible to appease their vote bank. The announcement for state assembly elections is expected any day. Once it is done, no leader will be able to make new announcement. Hence everybody is in hurry to declare sops.

As regards Nanded, barely two months ago, Chavan had organised a meeting with the farmers near Nanded city who were protesting against the acquisition of their lands. When Deshmukh was chief minister, government had tried to acquire the lands but failed in doing so. Farmers were demanding a much higher price and had even resorted to pelting stones at the MIDC officers went for the discussions. Facing a stiff opposition, Deshmukh had discarded the move but Chavan, being from Nanded himself, was confident of resolving the issue.

At present, the air service from Nanded reaches to Latur and Mumbai. But reportedly the service attracts not much response.

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The Problems of Railway in Marathwada

The seven districts of Maharashtra bordering Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, namely Aurangabad, Nanded, Parbhani, Hingoli, Latur, Osmanabad, Jalna, Beed are collectively known as Marathwada. It was formerly under the Nizam rule and was separeted in 1960 at the time of formation of Maharashtra. The area is known for its economic backwardness and one reason ascribed for it is the lack of communication facilities. This absence of facilities include modern uitilities like internet and mobile communication as well as traditional ways of transportation. It is difficult for anyone to imagine how the area has been marred by the problems of railway.

To begin with, whatever rail network exists in Marathwada was laid by the then Nizam administration. According to district gazettes of Nanded, “Nanded and the adjoining districts of Aurangabad and Parbhani are very rich in raw materials-. Cotton, the important staple crop, is abundantly grown. Visualising the importance of these raw materials in the prospective development of the region, the erstwhile Hyderabad State undertook the laying down of Hyderabad-Manmad railway line, which later on came to be called as the Godavari Valley railway, which was again renamed as Kacheguda-Manmad railway, so as to enable the transportation of the abovementioned raw materials as well as passenger traffic which was the necessity of the day. The work of this line was completed and it was opened for traffic in 1899.” Not a single inch of track has been added to that set up. Broad gauge railway was a dream for most of the public in the area till as late as 1992. There are still some districts like Beed (except Parali) and Osmanabad which have no presence of rail road. The district gazette of Beed district published in 2006 says,

“Beed district, along with other districts of the Marathwada region, was not supplied with a well-knit system of communications till recently. The total rail length in the district at present measures only 48.28 km. (30 miles), the main railway station in the district being Parali-Vaijnath. The rail track running north-east joins it with Parbhani and that running southeast with Hyderabad. The Parali-Parbhani meter gauge line was opened for traffic in 1929. The Parali-Vikarabad broad gauge line opened in 1933 serves the district well by connecting it with Secunderabad and Hyderabad, which are important places. Parali-Vaijnath is the largest market town of the district and is connected with many trade centres in the outgoing areas. Beed, the headquarters of the district, lies off the railway route and thus depends on roadways for trade. The railway communication is restricted to a small portion in the east only. It thus depends for the most part on road transport for passenger and goods traffic.”

The people are demanding for railway facilities since 1950s. Recurring agitations and demand to the central government have failed to garner any advantage for the people of Marathwada. The result is that even though most of the workforce of industries in Pune and Mumbai come from these districts, the travel to these cities is next to a nightmare for the people. Passengers going to Pune from Nanded have to take a circular travel of more than 200 kms which take approximately 5 hrs.
One reason why this apathy is being shown may be that the Nanded railway division is attached with South Central Railway which has been dominated by Andhraites. On the other hands, the people from the region ask to attach the division with Central Railway as is the case all over the state. According to Sudhakar Doiphode, the senior journalist and editor of Prajavani, a Marathi daily from Nanded, “The region has been locked into two sides with the same apathy. The developed regions like Western Maharashtra look at Marathwada as backward. The leaders their give a cold shoulder to the problems of the region, meting out a step brotherly treatment. On the other hand, the SC railway is more concerned with the good performance in Andhra Pradesh. The officers who are mainly from AP are absolutely no concerned with the people here.”

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CAMPAIGNING COMES TO END

VOTING FOR FIRST PHASE ON THURSDAY

The campaigning for the election to the Lok Sabha came to an end in Nanded constituency today evening. In the last 13 days that I am here, there was no trace of hectic campaigning in the constituency. This when the chief minister of Maharashtra, Ashok Chavan represents the district in the Legislative Assembly. His brother in law Bhaskararao Patil Khatgaonkar is the candidate for the seat here. Sambhaji Pawar from Bharatiya Janata Party is his main opponent. Also, Preeti Shinde, a young candidate who has done her MBA in Fashion Marketing from Milan is also oin the fray from the Jan Surajya Party ticket. She has managed to grab much attention because of her credentials as also her campaigning has managed to create a good impression. She is sure to give a run for the money for both of these heavyweight candidates. Besides these three main faces, there are 22 candidates who are in the ring. Two electronic voting machines will have to used for them.

Nanded is one of the 124 constituencies spread over 15 states and two Union Territories going to the polls in First phase on Thursday. A total of 14 crore 31 lakh voters will exercise their right to vote in this phase.

R. Balakrishanan, deputy Election Commissioner said in New Delhi that over one lakh 85 thousand polling stations have been set up and over one lakh polling staff will man them. 1715 candidates are in the fray in this phase. Out of them 122 are women. The violence has started to engulf the electioneering process. In Bihar, activists of outlawed CPI (Maoist) torched off vehicles of contesting Janata Dal (United) candidate in Karakat Parliamentary constituency in wee hours on Tuesday. Maoists also blew up two school buildings by using dynamite at Barachatti in Gaya district.

Bahadur Sonker, Indian Justice Party candidate from Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh was murdered on Sunday night. The Election Commission has sought a report from the Jaunpur district administration in Uttar Pradesh on the incident. 

In Andhra Pradesh, the campaigning is at its peak in the 22 Lok Sabha and 154 Assembly constituencies where polling is to take place on Thursday. Meanwhile, a new incident surfaced there when Shubha Rani, the president of Women wing of Praja Rajyam Party nearly assaulted a cameraman of NTV Telugu. However, she later apologized for the incident. She was miffed by an attempt of Sting operation.

In Maharashtra, Hingoli parliamentary constituency which is formed after the delimitation will go to the polls in the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections on Thursday. It includes Hingoli, Kalamnuri, Basmat, Kinwat, Hadgoan and Umerkhed assembly constituencies. Bhokar assembly constituency has been excluded and Umerkhed assembly segment from Vidharba region included in this newly framed Lok Sabha constituency.

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Nanded Being Separated

Committee To Look Inot Grievances

I had written about the controversy over forming a separate office of divisional commissioner in Nanded. (Marathwada Divided, January )The next logical step of the development has been taken now with the forming of a new committe.

A one-member committee comprising retired justice P S Patankar is constituted by the state government to look into the dispute related to creationof separate Nanded revenue division, sources said today, according to agency story. The head quarter of the committee will be in Aurangabad city.

However, the full functioning of the committee will be only after the model code of conduct ends. The committee will hear grievances andobjections from various parties involved in the controversy.

The decision of creating the separate revenue division from existing Aurangabad division was taken by Chief Minister Ashok Chavan in December.The decision deepened the rift between former chief minister Viasrao Deshmukh and Chavhan. On the other hand, three petitions and many supplementarywrits challenging Chavan's decision have been admitted in the Aurangabad bench of Bombay high court.
State government has issued an order on March 19 for setting up this committee.

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