The Maharashtra Government suffered an embarrassment on Friday, as milk sachets and bottles were hurled towards its senior Minister Vinod Tawde's car by farmer activists who were protesting against the State administration's failure to ensure remunerative prices for their milk produce and relief for the drought-affected farmers.
On a day when State Ministers undertook tour of 29 talukas of drought affected Beed, latur and Osmanabad districts in Marathwada region, Tawde - who is the Education Minister in the Devendra Fadnavis Cabinet faced the wrath of farmer activists belonging to the Swabhimani Shetkari Sangatana when he was touring the scarcity-hit areas of Osmanabad district.
The Sanghatana activists staged a black flag demonstration and blocked his cavalcade at Yedshi village for nearly 15 minutes. They raised slogans against the state government for its failure to extend relief to the drought-affected farmers and to ensure remunerative prices for the milk produced by them. The agitating activists hurled milk sachets and bottles as also a few eggs towards to the minister's car.
In another incident that put the minister in a spot, Tawde's personal Assistant Santosh Surve and some local BJP activists allegedly manhandled Swabhimani Shetkari Sangatana's district Ravindra Ingale.
Reacting to the incident, Tawde wondered as to why the Swabhimani Shetkari Sangatana attacked him at a time when he as the Education Minister taking steps like waiving of the school fee and examination fees of drought-affected farmers' children and holding early exams for the children.
"The man behind the attack on me was one Ingle from Tuljapur. Instead of merely staging a demonstration, he chose to hurl a milk bottle at me when I was in the premises of a school. What if the milk had hit a school childIJ From the looks of it, it was a premeditated attack on me indulged in by the state leaders of the political party in question," Tawde said.
Alluding to the incident involving his PA, Tawde said: "The police will investigate the case and he will punished if found guilty".
The tour of the drought-affected areas of Marathwada by Maharashtra Ministers, including Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, came immediately after the end of a five-day-long tour of leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly Radh akrishna Vikhe Patil of the Congress.