Uddhav faces uphill task as CM
Now that Thackeray is at the helm of affairs, he will have to make good on these promises.
Mumbai: Uddhav Thackeray, as chief minister of Maharashtra, faces the massive task of delivering on the promises made by his party earlier. Among the major hurdles before him is the severe debt of 'four lakh crore under which the state is reeling. A complete loan waiver to farmers and a full meal for a measly '10 were two of the important promises made by the Sena in its manifesto before the Vidhan Sabha poll. Now that Mr Thackeray is at the helm of affairs, he will have to make good on these promises.
Due to the unseasonal rainfall last month, crops covering an area of 94.02 lakh hectares suffered extensive damage resulting in losses to the tune of '8,000 crore. More than one crore farmers have been affected by this vagary of nature. According to sources, if the government decides to provide a minimum aid of '10,000 per hectare to the farmers, it will have to make a provision of '9,400 crore per year. If the aid is increased to '25,000 per hectare, the provision will have to increase to a whopping '23,500 crore per year. Even when the Devendra Fadnavis government was in power, the BJP-led government at the Centre had offered aid of only '6,000 crore. With the Sena in the Opposition camp now, it will be interesting to see how much the Union government will respond to the state government’s pleas in future.
In addition to this, Mr Thackeray will have to make his stand clear on big-ticket projects like the bullet train and the metro car shed as party leaders have time and again expressed reservations against them. Mr Thackeray will also have to raise funds for the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar memorial projects. So far, the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi, led by the Sena, has not commented on the measures it will take to solve the economic crisis.
However, more than the financial challenges, it will be the emotional and religious issues that Mr Thackeray will have to handle with a great deal of tact, given the ideological differences between the Sena, NCP and Congress. The BJP has already started targeting the Sena for ostensibly giving up its Hindutva agenda. The criticism is likely to reach a crescendo in the near future. While the Sena was in power in Maharashtra the last time, it had changed the names of the Aurangabad and Osmanabad districts as Sambhajinagar and Dharashiv, respectively. The Congress-NCP government later reinstated these names. It will be interesting to see whether the Uddhav Thackeray-led government will change these names again.
Uddhav quits Saamana editor post
Mumbai: After becoming the head of the state, Uddhav Thackeray has quit as the editor-in-chief of Shiv Sena mouthpiece, Saamana. The responsibility will now be held by party leader Sanjay Raut, who has been the executive editor of the newspaper for 30 years.
The move came after Uddhav was slated to take oath as the chief minister of Maharashtra, being the first member of the Thackeray family ever to become CM of the state.
Hereon, Uddhav’s name will not be mentioned in the credit line as editor-in-chief of the Sena daily. Uddhav began his political journey as the editor of Saamana when he used to take potshots at the then Sena CM, Narayan Rane, in 1999.