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| Edited By: dna Correspondent |Source: DNA |Updated: Aug 18, 2019, 06:00 AM IST
Former Chief Minister of Maharashtra, former Union Minister incharge of PMO and Senior Congress Leader Prithviraj Chavan headed the Newsmaker initiative this week. He shared his insights on an array of issues from the floods in his constituency and Western Maharashtra to the preparedness of Congress for the upcoming polls in Maharashtra. He reiterated that the leadership crisis in the Congress in Centre is over and the party will soon have elections and see a non Gandhi President. He sounded confident that the outcome of the state and the national polls will be different and the party could win the state this time.
My part of the constituency was worst hit by floods. Krishna and Koyna rivers meet in the Pritisangam in Karad and there is always a flood like situation incase of excess rainfall in the Koyna and Krishna catchment area. This time the levels were much higher than what it was in 2005. Kolhapur and Sangli were badly affected too. So the question is whether the government’s response was adequate and could we have been prepared better. This is not the time for finger pointing but we must decide for future. The nodal minister for all sorts of disasters is the relief and rehabilitation minister. He has to be fully supported by the Chief Minister and has to be given all the authority when he is on the ground there. In 2005, Vilasrao Deshmukh was the Chief Minister and the Guardian Minister was Patangrao Kadam in Sangli, who was also the relief and rehabilitation minister. Harshvardhan Patil was the guardian minister for Kolhapur. I remember Harshavardhan Patil camped in Kolhapur for 18 days continuously and Patangrao Kadam likewise.
Here because of the proximity of state elections and campaigning programmes organised by the minister, Chief Minister and various booth committees, were busy in their spheres. Perhaps the ministers on the ground of Kolhapur and Sangli should have alerted the chief minister. The collector send the usual bureaucratic report, but probably nobody paid much attention to it. One of the biggest mistake that happened was one of two ministers should have been on the ground in Kolhapur, that didn’t happen. Both ministers arrived late and the relief and rehabilitation minister was addressing a booth level rally. The Chief Minister was also busy with his Mahajanadesh Yatra.
I think there are two or three things to keep in mind for the future. Number one, there is no way that a political leader can take a call on the operation of a dam. These areas are drought prone. So if the dam is not full till its capacity, and still if the water is released, the chief minister or any political leader will be blamed.
For Karnataka too, it is easier for Almatti people to blame the officials for not releasing water from the dam beforehand. There are two dams 250 kilometres away and the water has to flow from higher level to a lower level. The gradient is very critical for the water to flow. If the gradient is high, water will flow quickly and if gradient is low, water will not flow. So that was a very risky decision for CM of Karnataka. If he empties the dam, and if it doesn’t rain thereafter, then there will be inadequate water during the summer months, and that will be suicidal for him.
So my first suggestion is to form a Krishna River Authority that will be purely nonpolitical and technical. It can be chaired by Home Minister of India or the Prime Minister. The Kaveri River Authority which deals with three states is chaired by Prime Minister. There should be a technical body with the highest level of co-ordination between IMD, to forecast rains and supported by topological engineers. Flood level data and flood level maps should be created. The insurance industry should be ready in the area and the insurance rate will differ depending on whether the houses are above or below flood line. This is what happens in America where the Federal Emergency Management Agency has integrated itself with the insurance agency.
Our government in 2005 formed the NDRF after the Mumbai floods and it has worked well. There should be all weather helicopters at their disposal and a fixed wing aircraft too. There are airfields in Kolhapur, Hubli, Belgaum, Karad, Kirloskarwadi and Phaltan. The biggest airplane that we have is IR 76 and C 130. IR 76, these can even carry a battle tank inside it. One plane load and you can get all relief material and you can land it in Kolhapur or in Sangli. That aircraft requires a very small runway. It can run even on Kacha airstrip.
But what happened there? There were no boats. People of Brahmnal village panicked and thought there will be no one to carry us ashore. The NDRF team could have rappelled down and airlifted them. But that did not happen.
Second suggestion is the geography. Every year the same village is encircled, the same bridge is under water. Every city, every village and every town should have a local disaster plan. I went to a village in Kolhapur where all villagers were taken to a milk co-operative society and dumped there. All this should be on a paper. There should be a proper plan.
During my term, I had got the Dutch experts to come to Mumbai in order to analyse and find solution. What happens is, after a week, everyone forgets about the flood related issues until the next monsoon arrives. On ground engineers are the need of the hour, they can provide technical solutions. Even the Mahalaxmi Express that go by Karad is still not functioning, the Kolhapur highway stretch that was shut for 15 to 20 days. All these added more tensions in the economy chart. Another solution I had was the coastal road project, which was to better the flow of traffic on roads. But still, after five years, nothing has progressed.
By taking inspiration from Netherlands, we can solve a major problem of stopping the sea water flowing into the city. We can also build a huge pumping capacity to pump out water if it fails to flow out naturally. These solutions are technically feasible even though it may cost lot of money.
It will be an understatement to say that it is not a major panic situation for us. Its was an unexpected disaster. People still are not prepared to believe that what has actually happened.
We have a plan for August 21, we are going for a nation wide morcha (protest) demanding paper based ballot. Election Commission’s constitutional responsibility is to hold free and fair elections, and every citizen should be able to trust them, and that is not happening. Change of leadership would have happened quickly and smoothly but that did not happen. One of the reasons for that is, we did not have party elections for a long time. Party elections automatically throw up some kind of hierarchy of leadership. Now there is a plan that new permanent president of the party will be chosen by the election process. I hope that happens.
Last election we all know that certain things influenced people, like bringing up national security agenda, muscular foreign policy, Pakistan, Dabbang neta, Hamne jake mara. All those things resonated with people, and the plan which we had prepared that the government had failed in development aspect did not become an issue at all. Our development, economy, jobs, farmers distress all these are unresolved issues. All these were not of concern. They made headlines with Balakot then, and now the scrapping of Article 370. Well, this is a new ploy to fight the election. People say long standing, long pending issues have been resolved by the PM, so other things do not matter. We are hoping that people have voted differently for state elections.
Hopefully we have some alliances in Maharashtra with NCP particularly. We paid a huge price for not having an alliance with NCP last assembly election. Moment we fight separately, our chances of getting back to power evaporated completely. So we will not repeat the mistake this time. We will have an alliance. There are seat adjustment issues, but five, six, seven, eight seats needs to be sorted out. Otherwise we should be able to fight about 100 to 125 seats each and leave about 30-40 seats for alliance partners.
He (PM Modi) is a master communicator. He coins these new phrases and puts them into the public domain. Now country is going to reach $5 trillion no matter what. When will it reach, by which date? Will that translate into gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate. Arvind Subramanian, the man who was in charge of economy for five years as chief economic advisor said that Indian economy should have be growing at 7%, but it is growing at about four and a half per cent. India will become a $5 trillion economy sometime or the other, no matter who leads. So tell us the date then we can calculate the growth rate.
International media right from the Economist to New York Times, everybody has criticised India’s jumbling of economic data. The rate of unemployment is the highest as compared to past 45 years, but you never talk about that. Government is dodging the real issues. What happened to the Smart City project. Of course you need to be a good communicator, but can you run away from real issues?
That was a suggestion by somebody. Let us not go into any formula, but we want the VBA or whatever they call themselves to come with us, so that anti BJP forces are not divided. This is what BJP is trying to do, divide and rule.
We are after VBA. I don’t want to say we are begging them but we don’t want our vote to get divided. We wantvotes to save the Constitution, to ensure dictatorship doesn’t come here, and to save Babasaheb Ambedkar’s legacy we are on the same page on that.
No. AIMIM is a party based on religious ideology. But they (VBA) have to decide whether they want to stand against BJP or join us. But if VBA makes unreasonable demands like giving Congress 40 seats then it is not acceptable. Last Lok Sabha elections VBA’s candidature got 8 RSS minded people elected. A tall Dalit leader like Sushil Kumar Shinde was defeated. So what did they achieve? They achieved success of eight RSS minded leaders.
It is a nuanced relationship. The role of the PMO is to be a leader, a trouble shooter or a problem solver. I was in the PMO. There are problems of three natures there. One is the inter-state disputes. For example, there are problems like Goa and Maharashtra. If you use a muscular policy on flood management then both CMs will be upset. So how do you resolve that issue. Then there are issues between ministries. The Forest Ministry not clearing a line or the environmental clearance not coming forth. It is a dispute resolution office which resolves inter-departmental issues without bringing it to the level of newspaper headlines. Third is maintaining foreign relations. If there is a foreign dignitary visited they want to meet the defence minister, foreign minister or atleast the PMO. If the PMO becomes more muscular then no secretary can take any decision on behalf of his/her department. They wait for instructions from the PMO.
There is always a dilemma that if you ally with regional parties then your party gets marginalised. Today, our entire political system is based on spoils of office. If we get into power the people will get boards, corporations and ministerial berth etc. Everybody is waiting to get their share in the power. That is where democracy is at stake. The CM casually spoke of ‘saam, daam, dand, bhedh’ and that is precisely what is happening.
Winnability is another criteria. Before the Lok Sabha, we thought that we will be near striking distance of forming the government. I suggested that the Congress should make a group of 4-5 people and visit state capitals. When you rule for ten years, a lot of feathers get ruffled. All of us, while in power have done some favour to somebody. We can recall some of the favours, atleast a meeting can be arranged. Those networking relationships that we have build up over the years could be utilised. People said that youth will vote for youthful leader. It didn’t happen. But definitely, BJP has no idea for the future or the youth.
It is not true, that they (builders) were not allowed in Mantralaya. I only suggested them to take prior appointment. When I was a chief minister, of Maharashtra, I chose to deal with associations than individuals. Why can’t associations come together and give me eight issues that they were facing. I held numbers of meetings with them and I think that is correct way. Industry topics should be dealt at an industry association level not at an individual level. What has impacted the real estate industry is the GST and demonetisation.
After 1991, Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, an emotional fervour was created. Sonia Gandhi could have easily been PM candidate, but she chose not to. There was no Gandhi either in the party or government for those 8-9 years. First it was PV Narshima Rao, followed by Sitaram Kesari. When there were two debacles under this leadership in 1996 and 1998, the Congress party leaders including Sharad Pawar, pleaded her to take the leadership. And she delivered, after 1999, we had 10 years of government.
We had very sad chapter for two and half months, we didn’t have a leader rather, Rahul Gandhi reluctantly agreed to take some decisions. Sonia Gandhi has now agreed to step in as a stop gap arrangement. There will be election hopefully. But, Rahul Gandhi will not contest, Sonia Gandhi has retired voluntarily and Priyanka Gandhi has already opted out of it. So there will be someone.
Yatra allows you to reach to the remotest part of the state. But there is not enough time. We will be busy with the selection of the candidates, then candidates and party workers will be busy in their own constituencies ahead of elections. So, I have suggested that we should have a joint meeting of all coalition partners in six divisional headquarters. Travelling by road can be worked out, but unfortunately we don’t have time. We should have done it much earlier.
