The BJP-led saffron alliance Government on Sunday braced itself for a stormy Monsoon Session of the Maharashtra legislative Assembly beginning from Monday, with the Opposition warning the Devendra Fadnavis-led dispensation that it would not allow both the Houses of Maharashtra legislature to function untill the State Government announces a full waiver of loans taken by the distressed farmers.
After boycotting the customary tea get-together hosted by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on the eve of the start of the Monsoon Session, the Opposition parties — Congress, NCP, Samajwadi Party and PWP — threatened to corner the saffron alliance on the contentious issues like farmers’ suicides, the alleged scams involving its Ministers and “deteriorating” law and order situation.
Addressing a joint news conference here, leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil of the Congress and his counterpart in the Upper House Dhananjay Munde charged that the Fadnavis Government had failed to keep any of promises made to the distressed farmers across the State. This, they said, was despite the fact that as many as many as 1,576 debt-trapped farmers had committed suicides ever since the BJP-led saffron alliance came to power in the State in November last year.
They said that though the Maharashtra Government had announced during the Winter Session of the State legislature that it would repay loans worth `171 crore taken by farmers from private money lenders, none of the beneficiary farmers had received certificates declaring them to be debt-free.
“Similarly, the Chief Minister had promised to re-schedule the farmers’ crop loans by June 15, the Government has not done anything in this connection, As a result, farmers are not getting fresh loans from banks,” They said.
Castigating the CM for the “deteriorating” law and order situation, Vikhe-Patil and Munde said that the CM had not bothered to visit the families of the 100-odd persons killed in the Malad-Malwani hooch tragedy, while Fadnavis’ home city of Nagpur had become crime capital of Maharashtra. “An attempt is being made to vitiate the social harmony among the people in the State, while the atrocities on Dalits and women are on the increase,” the two Opposition leaders said.
In their staunch criticism of the chief minister for his failure to initiate action against a few of Cabinet colleagues allegedly involved in scam, the two leaders said: “The chief minister has failed to take cognizance of the documents exposing the scams allegedly involving a few of the state ministers. If anything, he has given clean chits to the ministers allegedly involved in scams”.
They said that they would raise a host of issues like the dilly-dallying tactics adopted by the State government in erecting the statues of Chhatrapati Shivaji and late B R Ambedkar and granting of job and educational reservations for Dhangar, Muslim and Maratha community members in the State.
“We will also raise issues like the large-scale corruption in the Sena-ruled Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the BJP-led state government, and demand action against tainted ministers like Pankaja Munde and Vinod Tawde” the two Opposition leaders said.
Meanwhile, the State Government announced that it would introduce as many as 15 new bills, push for the passage or withdrawal of two bills and seek to convert 11 ordinances into bills during the monsoon session.
