CM misleading over drought: Congress

Mumbai: The Congress on Friday slammed chief minister Devendra Fadnavis for failing to fulfil his promise of tackling the drought situation in Maharashtra.

Addressing a press conference in Gandhi Bhavan, party spokesperson and general secretary Sachin Sawant accused the chief minister and his cabinet colleagues of misleading the people of Maharashtra on the extent of the drought situation.

Mr. Fadnavis had on Thursday said that he would make Maharashtra drought-free if elected for a second time.

“In 2015, Mr. Fadnavis promised to make 25, 000 villages drought-free in the next five years. In 2017, he stated that the state would be drought-free before 2019. In 2018, he repeated his 2017 promise. Last year, even Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in Shirdi that 16,000 villages in the state had become drought-free,” Mr Sawant said.  

Mr Sawant also raised questions over the state government’s plan to introduce a legislation to reserve 80 per cent of the job for locals. Recalling industries minister Subhash Desai’s statement that industries have provided most of the jobs in supervisory and non-supervisory categories to locals, Mr Sawant questioned the need for a law. “If the government has provided jobs to so many locals, why is it planning to come with a law,” Mr Sawant said.