Slamming Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for their “over-dependence” on the “bosses in Delhi”, Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole said that the two leaders “are puppets in the hands of their masters in the national Capital” and that “they always have their one foot in Delhi”.
On a day when Shinde announced after he and Fadnavis met Union Home Minister Amit Shah that the Shiv Sena headed by him and the BJP would contest all future polls in Maharashtra together, Patole said that the two ruling alliance leaders were working “only at the behest of their Delhi bosses”. Coming down heavily on the frequent visits of Shinde and Fadnavis to Delhi, Patole said: “They (Shinde and Fadnavis) cannot take any decision without the permission of their Delhi bosses. They are the puppets at the hands of their masters in Delhi and they always have one foot in Delhi”.
Talking to media persons here, Patole said that Shinde had himself declared at a function in Aurangabad that “he is an agent of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Shah.”
“Now there is talk that he has gone to Delhi for Cabinet expansion because he cannot take a decision without asking Delhi. Many departments have no Ministers for a year. See the irony, one Minister is in charge of six or seven departments and six districts have only one guardian Minister. All this has brought the administration of the State to a standstill,” Patole said. “Ministers cannot do justice to any department. The people are suffering because of the lack of administration in the State. Several of the issues of the public continue to be pending but the Shinde-Fadnavis Government is not worried about it,” he said.
“Today there is severe shortage of water in many parts of the State, farmers are desperate, farmers have not yet received help for the damage caused by unseasonal rain and hailstorm. The time has come for the farmers to throw their produce on the road, cotton is still lying in the farmer’s house,” Patole said. “But the Shinde-Fadnavis Government doesn’t care about all these issues. It is only concerned with turning everything into an event. The people of the State are fed up with this Government and it will be sent back in the next elections,” the State Congress president said.