Mumbai: After Nana Patole, now Ashish Deshmukh, a first-term MLA from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has hit out at chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and the BJP-led state government.
In a letter written to the chief minister, Mr Deshmukh said, “Nothing has changed in the last three years. Neither are farmers getting their dues nor are industries coming to the state.” The MLA is known for his proximity to Mr Fadnavis and so his criticism has raised eyebrows in political circles.
In his missive, Mr Deshmukh focussed prominently on the issue of farmer suicides. “Agriculture minister Pandurang Fundkar comes from Vidarbha. Still, there has been no decline in farmer suicides,” he wrote. He further said that “the loan waiver scheme has not been fruitful yet.
Farmers need to get money as early as possible.”
Mr Deshmukh has also raised the issue of industrial growth of the region, which is facing a slowdown in the last few months. “Many small and medium scale industries have shut down. Thousands of workers are jobless now.” He also suggests in the letter that the money being used for the Nagpur metro needs to be given to these small industries, a step which would set right the priorities of the state government.
With an eye on the Nagpur session due to start on Monday, Mr Deshmukh also raised the Vidarbha issue. “The demand for a separate Vidarbha is completely logical. Today, Vidarbha produces 70 per cent of the power generated in the state, but it gets very little in return. The finance minister Sudheer Mungantvar is from Vidarbha. But Vidarbha has not been given its dues in the budget. This is an injustice,” he claims.
Mr Deshmukh who is a BJP legislator from Vidarbha, is the second BJP leader after Mr Patole to slam his own party. Mr Patole, however, resigned from the BJP last week. The similarities between both leaders is quite interesting. Both Mr Deshmukh and Mr Patole have a Congress background. Mr Deshmukh’s father, Ranjit Deshmukh was president of the Maharashtra Congress, while he himself was a member before joining the BJP in 2014.
This letter has also kick-started a discussion in political corridors that leaders with a Congress background in the BJP are disappointed with the party’s performance in the state and want to distance themselves from it.
