NCP slams Fadnavis for 'late' response to Maha floods
Mumbai: As the flood situation in western Maharashtra turned grim, the NCP attacked Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for "waking up late" to the situation and termed his aerial survey of the affected region as "disaster tourism".
NCP chief spokesperson Nawab Malik asked Fadnavis to convene a meeting of the disaster management cell and representatives of Army, Navy and opposition parties to chalk out a plan to provide immediate relief to "around 2.5 crore affected people".
Malik also squarely blamed the government after a rescue boat capsized in flood-hit Sangli, in which nine people were killed, contending that the help provided in the district was "inadequate".
Fadnavis on Thursday conducted an aerial survey to review the flood situation in Sangli and Kolhapur districts.
"Today, he (Fadnavis) has gone there for disaster tourism. Thousands of officials are protecting him, busy serving him. It was his duty that he sat in Mumbai and monitored everything from here," Malik said.
"The government did not take the decision in time, which has resulted in the drought situation in Maharashtra as well as neighbouring Karnataka," he alleged.
Malik said Fadnavis "woke up late" to the flood situation and allegedly gave priority to his pre-poll Maha Janadesh Yatra, a public outreach programme the chief minister launched last week in the run-up to the Assembly polls.
Meanwhile, Fadnavis cancelled his programmes as part of the yatra.
Referring to the cabinet meeting held on Wednesday, Malik said the government focused more on the distribution of land to organisations and thinking about Rs 15,000 crore loan than concentrating on relief measures.
The Maharashtra Cabinet on Wednesday approved a proposal to take a long-term loan of Rs 15,000 crore to complete the ongoing irrigation projects.
The government also decided to allow 648 square metre land here on a 30-year lease to the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams that manages the famous Lord Venkateswara temple in Andhra Pradesh.
"We demand you (Fadnavis) give up this puerility. Call the meeting of disaster management, Army, Navy and opposition parties to discuss how to save lives of the people," Malik said, adding that politics must be kept aside at this juncture.
He added that the NCP has set up a relief camp for 72,000 affected people in Sangli's Islampur.
The NCP would also dispatch its first truck loaded with medicines, clothes and biscuits for the affected people, he said.
The former Maharashtra minister also said that party MPs and MLAs have decided to contribute their one-month salary towards the relief fund for the flood-hit people.
Meanwhile, another senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar attributed the devastation caused in Western Maharashtra to the government's "inefficiency".
Training his guns at the state government in Ahmednagar's Shirdi, he said Fadnavis abandoned his yatra for a day (on Wednesday when he held a review meeting in Mumbai on the issue) only after the opposition party pointed it out.
Addressing a rally as part of the NCP's pre-poll 'Shivswarajya Yatra' in Nashik later, Pawar targeted the government over the Sangli boat capsize incident, saying it happened as the boat was overcrowded.
Pawar took a dig at Fadnavis, saying that it took no time for the CM to facilitate the stay of 14 Karnataka Congress-JD(S) MLAs to trigger the collapse of the previous H D Kumaraswamy government in the southern state and pave the way for the ascension of BJP's BS Yediyurappa as the chief minister there.
"But why this delay on part of Fadnavis in asking Yediyurappa to open gates of the Almatti dam located downstream in Karnataka?" Pawar asked.
Lack of discharge from the Karnataka dam is considered to have contributed to the flood situation in Kolhapur and Sangli districts.
