Maharashtra is at a standstill

State is at a standstill

CAMIL PARKHE

Sakal Times

http://www.sakaaltimes.com/20120605/5311163883781370098.htm

Tuesday, June 05, 2012 AT 08:13 PM (IST)

Tags: Bihar,   Nitish Kumar

The recent reports that Bihar has recorded the highest, 13 per cent, growth rate among the states needs to be welcomed not only by the people in Bihar but also other states where local politicians have been crying hoarse over the influx of Biharis in their respective states. Bihar has experienced a new lease of life after Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal (United) took over as chief minister, ending the over 15-year-old rule of Lalu Prasad Yadav.

Maharashtra, the leading state in the country, has experienced a strong resentment against the presence of Biharis and people from other northern states after Raj Thackeray broke away from the Shiv Sena and used the issue of "outsiders" to create political space for his Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. When Bal Thackeray floated his Shiv Sena in the 1960s, he too had made the south Indians in Mumbai the targets and entrenched himself as the voice of the Marathi people, especially in Mumbai. Today, when Raj Thackeray has been praising the Narendra Modi-led Gujarat model of development and Bihar is progressing fast, Maharashtra is fast losing the race to retain its lea in development.

Almost all parts of the state are facing load shedding for several hours a day. The plight of farmers and entrepreneurs in rural sectors is worse. They face power shutdown when electricity is most needed. The economic growth in these areas has virtually come to a halt and yet there are no sign of measures to mitigate the situation in near future. The power scarcity is expected to create an alarming situation within a few years and the ruling group leaders and those in the opposition are refusing to acknowledge the writing on the wall. Some major cities like Aurangabad receive drinking water after an interval of two days while towns like Shevgaon in Ahmednagar district get water after four days. Shevgaon is not far away from the Jayakawadi reservoir, state’s largest irrigation project. Even then, residents of such towns are considered luckier than people in remote villages, who just do not have any source of clean drinking water. This indeed is a sorry state of affairs for an economically developed state.

What is worse is that none of the political parties and leaders -- ruling or opposition -- has taken up these issues in the interest of the masses or tried to exploit them to their own political advantage. All politicians take up people’s issues and hit the streets only during the state or the civic polls. They return to their cabins in New Delhi or Mumbai as soon as the elections are over, even before counting begins. In the past, leaders like Sharad Pawar, Pramod Mahajan, Gopinath Munde or even Ramdas Athavale had undertaken statewide tours, mobilising public opinion on  people’s issues. This had helped them to be on first-name terms with local leaders and eventually become a leader of the masses. The new breed of politicians has not tried that sort of approach. They have never tried to be with the masses to really get to know their problems. They usually do not know the pulse of the masses.

Senior BJP leader L K Advani recently criticised the UPA government for the various crises faced by the country but lamented that even the BJP work has been disappointing. The same can be said about the Congress-NCP front in Maharashtra. The front has been elected to rule for the third consecutive term only because the opposition parties have miserably failed to expose the ruling group’s failures on economic, industrial and other fronts. The state has not witnessed any major development in power generation, industrial growth or on removal of the regional development imbalance. The ruling politicians have remained steadfastly apathetic to the people’s problems while the opposition leaders have not been much different.

The recent BJP executive meeting saw Gopinath Munde on the dais after long. Although a mass leader in his party, Munde has been keeping a low profile after Nitin Gadkari became the party president three years back. The voices of other opposition leaders, including the Shiv Sena, are heard only when the state legislative session is on, or when elections are round the corner. Their agenda is confined to the protests in the House and statements at media conferences.

Raj Thackeray has rarely moved out of Mumbai to keep himself abreast of the state situation. Nor is he monitoring the affairs of the state legislature and civic bodies, where his party members have been elected. The leaders don't realise that Nitish Kumar and Mamata Banerjee had to toil hard for nearly two decades before they could oust the ruling parties in their states.

The lacklustre performance of all-party politicians is ominous for the future of the state. In the face of intense competition from other states, Maharashtra will have to strive extra hard to attract investment and maintain its lead in development. And everyone must remember that even the basic needs of the entire population are not being met at present.

Cong, NCP go aggressive in ZP, civic polls

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Cong, NCP go aggressive CAMIL PARKHE Tuesday, January 31, 2012 AT 10:58 PM (IST) Tags: Civic polls 2012,   Cong,   NCP The elections to zilla parishad, panchayat samitis and 10 municipal corporations in Maharashtra have will be yet another political battle fought by the five main parties in the state. The polls have come just a couple of months after the municipal councils polls, in which the Congress and the NCP had fared well. The battles-lines are expected to on the same lines as in the municipal polls. That is why the Congress and the NCP are in an aggressive mood while the opposition Shiv Sena and the BJP have been forced on the defensive.   The elections to 27 zilla parishads and 309 panchayat samitis will be held on February 7 and polls to 10 corporations, including Mumbai, Pune, Pimpri Chinchwad and Aurangabad, on February 16. Civic elections are also due in Nagpur, Thane, Nashik, Amravati, Kolhapur and Akola. The main contestants are the two constituents of the Democratic Front, the Congress and the NCP; the saffron alliance of the Shiv Sena and the BJP, which has been reinforced this time by the Republican faction led by Ramdas Athavale; and the comparatively new entrant in the state politics, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena led by Raj Thackeray. All the parties are gearing up for the polls and finding ways to woo the voters.   The crucial polls are being held as the Congress-led ruling front is completing half of its third consecutive term. In such circumstances, the ruling combine often faces the heat of the anti-incumbency wave. But thanks to the acts of commissions and omissions by both the Congress-NCP government and the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance, the municipal council poll verdict indicated that the ruling front faces no such wave. In fact, because of some turbulence in its own camp, it is the saffron alliance which  has been forced to lick its own wounds, leaving it with little strength to attack the ruling front with some effectiveness. The only political party outside the ruling front thoroughly enjoying the present political atmosphere and ready to exploit it for its advantages is the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. The local self-government poll will serve as a rehearsal for the state polls, scheduled two years later.    The panchayati raj and municipal council poll should have served as an ideal opportunity for the opposition to attack the ruling front on corruption scandals like the Adarsh housing complex in Mumbai and the nine-month imprisonment of Pune's suspended Congress MP, Suresh Kalmadi, in Tihar jail in the Commonwealth Games scam. But most opposition parties are busy setting their own house in order.   Senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde is the party's only mass leader in the state but he has been facing major setbacks in the past couple of years. He has little time to consolidate the party's base. He has been fighting a battle for survival in his own party with party president Nitin Gadkari. After threatening to quit the party and knocking at the door of other parties, Munde decided to stay put in the BJP but not without damaging his credentials. Now, the former deputy chief minister is facing a serious challenge on his home turf of Beed district from his nephew and MLC, Dhananjay Munde, who is openly hobnobbing with the  NCP. Gadkari and other Munde detractors are doing everything to marginalise Munde. So the BJP leaders have no time to train their guns on the ruling party or to give a fight in the panchayati and civic body polls. A wounded Munde is no position to play a vital role in galvanising the BJP and reviving its poll prospects. The  Shiv Sena is fighting a battle to retain its two-decade hold on power in Brihamaumbai Municipal Corporation. It faces a major threat from the combined forces of the Congress and the NCP. This is for the first time the two Congresses have come together in Mumbai civic elections. The presence of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena in the previous State Assembly polls had helped the Congress-NCP to defeat the saffron alliance in Mumbai and to return to power for the third consecutive term. The ruling front hopes that the Raj Thackeray-led party will play a vital role in dethroning the Shiv Sena. The revolt of the Shiv Sena's Thane MP Anand Paranjape -- the party's only victorious nominee in the Mumbai-Thane belt in the last Lok Sabha polls -- has dealt a severe jolt to the party. It will have repercussions on the civic poll in Thane.     So it is no wonder that the ruling Congress-NCP front hopes to romp home at the hustings without much difficulty. All the opposition parties will really have to really work overtime during the remaining few days to deny a cake-walk for the ruling front, although the ruling front has performed no great wonders to stake claims to uninterrupted power. The opposition has to expose the misdeeds of the government and prove its own credentials. The verdict of the electorate will show who among the ruling group and the opposition plays its role effectively.