Oppn unites to target ruling alliance in Maharashtra monsoon session

Scams, farmers suicides, deteriorating law and order and poor state of finances to dominate proceedings

The face-off between the ruling and Opposition parties is quite imminent during the three-week monsoon session, which will commence from Monday.  For a change, the Opposition Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and other smaller parties are united while the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena alliance is a divided house. Opposition parties have already geared up to grill the state government on scams relating to fake degrees, the Rs 206 crore procurement of chikki and other items

under the Integrated Child Development Scheme, and the Rs 191 crore procurement of fire extinguishers for zilla parishad schools by passing the tender process. These corruption cases allegedly involve senior ministers Vinod Tawde, Pankaja Munde and Babanrao Lonikar. Even though the trio has defended its innocence, Opposition parties are not satisfied saying they will press for their resignations.

Further, the Opposition proposes to corner the government on a spate of farmer suicides, the third year of successive drought and the government’s apathy to provide relief, the deteriorating law and order situation, and the 100 plus deaths in the hooch tragedy in Mumbai.

The government faces a huge challenge to put in place an alternative model after the abolition of local body tax (LBT) to compensate the revenue loss of 25 municipal corporations. The government in the annual budget has already announced to scrap LBT from August 1. Furthermore, the Opposition plans to take on the government on the poor state of finances, especially when the revenue deficit is estimated to rise to Rs 7,000 crore from the budget estimate of Rs 3,757 crore by end of 2015-16.

Moreover, what has come quite handy to the Opposition is the widening gap between the BJP and the Shiv Sena, and the ongoing verbal duel between the two. Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray’s scathing statement that corruption is visible everywhere despite change of rule at the Centre and in Maharashtra has been strongly retaliated by the BJP.

The Opposition will target Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for the rise in crime, especially in the chief minister’s home town of Nagpur. The State Cooperation Minister Chandrakant Patil raised questions over the functioning of the home ministry. Patil has landed Fadnavis in an embarrassing situation.  

The Leader of Opposition in the state assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil and the Leader of Opposition in the state council Dhananjay Munde said they will press for a loan waiver to farmers facing hardships due to dry spell and their inability to repay loans following damage of crops due due to untimely rainfall, scarcity and hailstorm. Vikhe-Patil, who has already announced to expose sting operations against three more ministers, alleged that the government was engaged in self-glorification and was busy making a slew of announcements.

Munde said Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis should not repeatedly warn of holding inquiries into corruption cases during Congress-NCP government. Instead, he added that the government should present a report card of its eight-month rule.

Fadnavis has downplayed the Opposition charges terming them baseless and the government is fully prepared to counter them. He said the government has taken a number of pro-development and pro-welfare schemes.