Mumbai: The ‘Maha Vikas Aghadi’, a newly floated front of the Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress, might have beaten the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) at its own game and chased it out of power in Maharashtra, but this is only one battle won.
The next five years are already looking challenging for the new government. The state is in a deep mess, both on the front of economic growth and social movements, and it will take efficient governance and political will to address the several challenges that have been plaguing Maharashtra over the past five years.
Given that the three partners have fundamental differences, both in terms of ideology and approach, they will have to come to a consensus to ensure that these challenges are met.
The Wire breaks down some of the main issues in the state.
Farmers’ woes
Earlier this month, a video of a farmer, crying over the ridiculously low price he got for his onions, went viral. The farmer, from Ahmednagar district in western Maharashtra, said, “I had to employ labourers to pick onions from the field in rain. How do I pay them now?” After the back-breaking labour and the hard work put in to save the produce from incessant rains, the farmer was paid Rs 8 per kg. “What should I take home to feed my family?” he asked.
This is so heartbreaking!
A poor farmer from Ahmednagar, #Maharashtra got a measly Rs 8/kg for his onion produce. He is devastated & doesn’t know how he is going to pay labourers or feed his family.
This is what the man busy trying to save his CM’s chair has done for farmers! pic.twitter.com/Zv8sZHMUkw
— Sunil Ahire (@SunilAh64145529) November 10, 2019
This video of the farmer crying inconsolably was shared extensively, especially by members of the then opposition Congress. The situation has changed now. The farmer’s allegation that the BJP-led government did not care about farmers and had no clue or worry about their distress, will now have to be addressed by the newly floated government.
Maharashtra has seen some extreme climatic shifts in the past years. While the Marathwada region, comprising nine districts, has witnessed a drought year after year, the western Maharashtra region saw torrential and unseasonal rain this year. The Vidarbha region, one of the worst affected by drought, has seen the maximum number of farmers’ deaths due to suicide.
These extreme conditions have not only impacted common people’s lives and property, but also destroyed large amounts of farm produce. This seasons kharif cultivation – which is mostly finished by the end of September – was largely destroyed in the unseasonal rains of October.
The state has 149.74 lakh hectares of land under kharif cultivation (including sugarcane) and the unseasonal rains, according to the figures released by the government as its preliminary estimates, have damaged crops standing on over 94 lakh hectares.
Farmers have since been making desperate calls seeking immediate intervention of the state’s agricultural department and asking for urgent relief. Along with the general apathy, the political doldrums in the state did not help. Sources in the government claim that most files relating to farmers’ loan waivers and relief packages have piled up and decisions have been pending since September, when the model code of conduct was applied. Leave aside relief, government officials have not even been able to even finish the damage assessment process so that farmers get immediate help.
In his three-day stint as chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis cleared Rs 5,380 crore for farmers’ relief from the state’s contingency fund. But this amount is far less than what is required.
Debt-ridden Maharashtra
After Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra is the state under maximum debt, at over Rs 4.7 lakh crore. This drastic rise in the state’s debt happened in the past decade, before which the state’s debt stood at a manageable Rs 1-8 lakh crore. While several factors have attributed to the increase in the state’s debt, including the overall economic slump, the primary culprit is the outgoing state government that has failed to generate industrial growth and employment during its tenure.
Data revealed under the Right to Information Act showed that between January 2017 and March 2018, as many as 147 industries with over 60, 000 workers under the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) were shut down.
Small-scale industries are the worst hit. The Forum of Small-Scale Industries Association, in 2018, had demanded a special package for the revival of sick units. Abhay Bhor, president of the association, has accused the outgoing government of not paying enough attention to the sector. “These industries are responsible for providing employment to many but the sector has remained neglected,” he says.
According to Bhor, the state government, instead of reviving sick industries, focused on opening new ones. This added an additional strain on the state’s economy.
Several of these industries have been forced to shut down or have become sick in want of working capital. The association says the condition is so serious that owners have not paid their workers for months together, and if things continue as they are, there are very little or no chances of payments.
Bhima Koregaon: Criminalisation of Bahujans, lawyers and activists
Since Dalit-Bahujan followers of Dr. B R Ambedkar were attacked at Bhima Koregaon, a few kilometres away from Pune, several human rights activists and lawyers in the state have been at the receiving end of state repression. Soon after the violence on January 1, 2018, thousands of Bahujan youth, especially those who are assertive and politically vocal, were rounded up and booked in several cases.
These young people, who had poured onto the streets demanding the arrests of two Brahmin-Hindutva leaders – Manohar Bhide and Milind Ekbote – accused of orchestrating the violence, were in turn accused of violence and vandalism. Following pressure, while the Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP government said it would look into the cases and take back most of them, these cases have continued and most youth face the threat of being arrested at any moment.
Cases against Bhide and Ekbote have been thrown in cold storage and the Pune police has accused rights activists and lawyers of a bizarre “Urban Naxal” charge. At present, nine activists and lawyers have spent over a year in Pune’s Yerwada prison and their bail application is being stonewalled by the state police. The police has also launched a witch-hunt on many other academics and activists across the country – raiding their houses and filing cases against them.
Not just the issue of saffronisation of the Maharashtra police, the new alliance, if it sincerely wants to ensure the welfare of Bahujans and rights activists in the state, will also have to ensure tough action against the real perpetrators of the violence. Like BJP, several senior leaders of the Congress have been accused of having close ties with Bhide.
Aarey stand- off
In October, the Bombay high court rejected petitions that challenged the felling of trees in Aarey colony in suburban Mumbai to make way for the construction of a metro car shed.
In hours, bulldozers had arrived in Aarey and trees were cut under the cover of darkness. Environment-lovers and residents of Aarey joined in in large numbers against the metro officials’ decision to cut down trees. Police clamped down upon the protestors, hitting them brutally and arresting 29 persons under several sections of the Indian Penal Code.
The metro rail was BJP’s pet project. The decision to fell trees in the Aarey colony was also BJP’s decision. Fadnavis had taken it upon himself to ensure the trees go, as do the residents of the colony. Shiv Sena, which was in alliance with the BJP in the earlier government, however, had taken a drastically different stand and had decided to stand by the citizens opposing the project.
Shiv Sena’s youth leader and newly elected MLA Aaditya Thackeray was at the forefront of the political protest and had even insisted on reviving the region once back in power. He had slammed the hacking of trees and termed it a “shameful and disgusting” act.
However, the party’s election manifesto remained noncommittal and Aarey did not appear in its promises.
Now that the Sena is indeed back in power, with no less than the chief ministerial post going to the party head, Aarey will emerge as one of the most contentious issues before this incoming government.
Bullet trains future hangs in the balance
Amid strong protests from villagers in Maharashtra and Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had decided to bring in an estimated Rs 1.1 lakh crore project with a track length of 508 km running from Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai all the way to Sabarmati, Gujarat.
The project, funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), was not openly opposed by the Sena, Congress and NCP, but there have been several instances when the leaders had raised questions over the displacement and budgetary provisions allocated for the project.
In June, Sena legislator Maneesha Kayande in the state legislative council had asked about the environmental impact of the project. In response, state transport minister Diwakar Raote had said as many as 54,000 mangroves spread over 13.36 hectare would be destroyed.
Similarly, minister of state (MoS) Deepak Kesarkar too has been opposing the budgetary provisions made for the project. After the way for the Maha Vikas Aghadi became clearer, the first thing Kesarkar spoke about was the bullet train project. “Farmer are more important than a bullet train,” he said, indicating that that party will reconsider the project in the state.
No more Nanar
The biggest opposition to the Fadnavis government in its last tenure was from the Sena on the proposed 60-million-tonne capacity mega refinery and petrochemical project in Nanar and other villages of Ratnagiri. The farmers, all owning small to large size Alphonso mango orchards, had opposed the project tooth and nail, and the Sena was one of their strongest political supporters.
This project too was a dream project for Fadnavis, and three Indian public sector oil firms and Saudi Aramco had signed a Memorandum of Understanding for this project worth Rs 3 lakh crore. The Sena had emerged as BJP’s biggest challenger during those protests, which went on for several months in 2018, with local and state leaders marching with farmers and fisherfolk.
Several farmers were served notices under the Land Acquisition Act in 2017 and many of them were forced to sell their lands to private players under distress. Sena leaders had demanded the revocation of these sale deeds.
Following protests, the Fadnavis government was forced to move the project to another region and the Sena was hailed for this decision. Land rights activists, however, have accused the Sena of not taking a strong decision and completely scrapping the project. In April, this year, in an article in The Wire, social activist Ulka Mahajan has asked, “The Shiv Sena helped move the Nanar refinery. But now, the project is going to be established in the Raigad area, to which the party has given its nod. Are the people in Raigad dispensable?”