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Chavan's government is ineffective, says opposition in Maharashtra

"There is absolutely no transparency in the functioning of the government," Eknath Khadse, leader of the opposition in the state assembly, said.

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The opposition Shiv Sena-BJP alliance in the Maharashtra legislative assembly has claimed success in highlighting the ineffectiveness of the government through extensive debates in the budget session that concluded today.

Eknath Khadse, BJP politician and leader of the opposition in the state legislative assembly, and Shiv Sena group leader Subhash Desai said the opposition had successfully managed to put the government on the mat on several issues.

"The opposition raised several issues of corruption involving the government through discussion rather than disruptions," Khadse said.

Khadse said the legislature should function for at least 100 days in a year to accommodate more issues. The budget session that concluded today lasted just six weeks.

Khadse said even though the opposition had succeeded in highlighting several issues concerning the common man, many
issues were not answered by the government.

"We have been demanding that the government reveal how the loan money is utilised and issue a white paper on the financial health of the state," he said. But there was no response from the government.

The opposition also demanded levy of entertainment tax on IPL matches, which would give a sizeable revenue to the state, but the demand fell on deaf ears.

"There is absolutely no transparency in the functioning of the government," Khadse said.

Referring to the suspension of four Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) MLAs, Khadse said the government was unlikely to revoke the suspension.

The MLAs were suspended for four years for assaulting Samajwadi Party member Abu Asim Azmi for taking the oath of membership of the assembly in Hindi.

"We do not support their action," Khadse said. "But four years is
too long a period. It is injustice to the 12-15 lakh voters of their constituencies."

To another query, Khadse said the opposition had demanded legislation making attacks on journalists a non-bailable offence. The government gave an assurance that it would move such legislation but failed to actually do so.

On power, the Shiv Sena's Desai accused the government of taking the crisis in Mumbai lightly. "Tata Power has threatened to sell 500mw of electricity to consumers outside the state. If Reliance Energy has to supply interrupted power, it will purchase at a high cost and transfer the burden on the consumer," he said.

Meanwhile, Khadse said the opposition will move the courts against the government on the issue of transfer of Ramoshi watan land in Pune to a builder and waiving of a penalty of Rs2,000 crore on Hiranandani Builders.

"We did not get satisfactory replies from the government on these two issues," he said.

Asked if there were tensions between the Sena and the BJP over the latter retaining the post of leader of the opposition in the  legislative council, Desai said there were many differences between the parties, but that did not mean their alliance would break up.

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