Pankaja Munde’s fast over Marathwada’s water woes unites BJP in Maharashtra

Fadnavis warns of agitation if MVA does not implement decisions of previous BJP govt.

Pune: The factional feuds which surfaced in the Maharashtra unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after losing power in the assembly elections last year, the party seems to have found a rallying point in the symbolic day-long fast over Marathwada’s water woes staged by former Minister and BJP leader Pankaja Munde in Aurangabad city.

She argued that the intention behind her fast was to draw the attention of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government to Marathwada’s water woes. Munde stressed that her fast “was not one of protest or criticism against the newly-formed MVA government, but the opposition’s (BJP’s) expectation from it”.

“I am not holding this fast to seek any position within the party nor is it meant to criticize the working of the MVA, which has barely completed 100 days. This fast is only to convey the expectations that the farmers and people of Marathwada have from the Thackeray government with respect to the vital problem of water,” she said, during her fast held in front of the Aurangabad District Collectorate.

Munde further said that the object behind the fast was to draw the attention of the state government to the farmer suicides and migration from the region. “My agenda today is not to criticize the government but merely to state our expectations. While our government (previous BJP Govt) has done a lot of work for Marathwada, I would urge Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to expedite the water projects started by us,” she said.

Apart from senior BJP leader Eknath Khadse, Munde, had suffered a humiliating defeat in the state assembly polls held in October last year at the hands of her estranged cousin and Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) Dhananjay Munde. She had openly expressed her grudge against the BJP’s state leadership in general and former Chief Minister and the party’s current Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis in particular.

The disaffection of the other backward class (OBC) faction within the state BJP led by Khadse and Pankaja Munde against the party leadership had threatened to split the party wide open. However, Fadnavis, along with Union Minister Raosaheb Danve, former speaker Haribhau Bagade and Leader of Opposition in Legislative Council Pravin Darekar joined Munde during her day long fast to impress upon everyone that there was no rift within party ranks.

Lauding Pankaja Munde’s leadership, Fadnavis warned the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA that the BJP would take to the streets if it stopped or failed to implement the water projects begun by the previous BJP government.   

He further stated “even if Pankaja Munde’s fast today is a symbolic one, it will not remain so if this government (MVA) does not implement the projects that we had taken up to bring water to Marathwada. This region was always sidelined when the erstwhile Congress-NCP government was in power. Their leaders had always diverted water that was due to Marathwada to western Maharashtra. It was we (BJP) who approached Prime Minister Modi, who in turn gave his assent for the Rs. 4,000 crore Krishna valley-Marathwada project”.

Claiming that the ‘Jal Yukt Shivar’ scheme started by his government was a revolutionary water project, Fadnavis warned the Thackeray government of intensifying agitation against the MVA if it dared to scrap any project of the erstwhile BJP government that was in the interests of the people of Marathwada.

“All arrangements are in place thanks to our government. The present government only has to give assent and implement projects already started by us. The work that our previous BJP government has done must be taken forward. You (MVA) may even take credit or change the name of the projects originally started by us, but do not harm the interests of the people by scrapping them…Today, we (BJP) have only come to awaken you. If you take these projects ahead, we will support you, but if you try to delay projects, we will hit the streets tomorrow,” said Fadnavis.

All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader and Aurangabad Lok Sabha MP Imitiaz Jaleel dubbed Pankaja Munde’s fast as “a farce”. He remarked “what was Munde and the Fadnavis government doing in the last five years when the BJP was in power in the state. How can they think the people are such fools by holding fasts? The BJP was in power at the Centre and the State, but they did not do anything for Marathwada”.

Senior NCP leader and Minister for Food and Civil Supplies, Chhagan Bhujbal took a sarcastic dig at Pankaja Munde and the BJP, remarking: “if the BJP had indeed worked during the five years it had been given the chance, their leaders would not be sitting on fasts or talking of launching agitations now.”