Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis left the ongoing state assembly session midway on Tuesday to attend the wedding of the nephew of controversial businessman and Rajya Sabha member Ajay Sancheti in Nagpur.
Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis left the ongoing state assembly session midway on Tuesday to attend the wedding of the nephew of controversial businessman and Rajya Sabha member Ajay Sancheti in Nagpur.
BJP MLA Dr Sanjay Kute had tabled the issues of drought, untimely rains and compensation to affected farmers for discussion in the house.
"Fadnavis needs to be present in the House to hear the state assembly members' grievances and incorporate their views in the policy. However, he preferred to attend the wedding than understanding the farmers' issues. Sancheti is a controversial figure. He owns a flat in Adarsh housing society in Colaba, and has taken the contract of Goshikhurd irrigation project."
The CM's hurried departure, however, wasn't hurried enough. Sources tell dna that Fadnavis left the house at 2.30pm for Nagpur but missed his plane. So he came back to the house for a brief period, and left again at 5.30pm to attend the 7pm wedding of Sancheti's nephew. The businessman is perceived to be close to union minister Nitin Gadkari.
This paper's attempts to contact Fadnavis yielded no result as he was not available for comment.
BJP MLAs said they are new to house proceedings and were expecting the chief minister to hear them out. "We have come from a long way to raise our area's issues, so that farmers can get relief immediately. But this CM has no interest at all. The farmer suicides have risen. In the last four months, 560 farmers killed themselves in Marathwada. The government has failed to start fodder camps for animals. If it does not pay heed, more suicides will take place. This year is a very difficult time for farmers," said a party legislator, requesting anonymity.
He also said that initially, opposition leaders wanted to table the same subject for discussion in the house. "But the ruling party rejected their proposal and decided to take our own member's proposal. But after the subject was tabled, the CM left the discussion halfway through," said a senior Sena minister.
NCP MLA Satish Patil said the government is not concerned about farmer issues. "They are just providing lip service. Whenever help was asked for, they say there is no money in the exchequer. The state had submitted its proposal, demanding Rs4,000 crore from the Centre. There is no response for the last three months from the Centre. BJP ministers are saying they can only extend financial assistance to farmers once. My request to them is, first give out the aid announced earlier, then talk about helping more," he said.
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