With an eye on the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, who was on his maiden visit to Panvel for the inauguration of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Bhavan in the city, trained guns at Shiv Sena, saying, "Some of them have been using Dalits for their political benefit."
He said, "Have you ever seen any Shiv Sena leader going and paying respect to Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar on December 6? In contrast to this, the chief minister and deputy chief minister, wherever they are, make it a point to visit Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar's memorial on Mahaparinirvan Din and pay respects to the great leader on the behalf of people of the state. Some people have been using Dr Ambedkar for their own political mileage."
The deputy chief minister's comments came after former minister in Maharashtra government Chandarakant Handore, accused some leaders in the DF-government of giving a clean chit to leaders of opposition parties, who burnt homes of Dalit leaders during the Marathwada University naming controversy.
Pawar also threw a challenge at the opposition parties, who have been alleging corruption in the state government. "What is the point of saying there is corruption in this project and that project? I have appealed to the opposition parties to give us concrete evidence, so that action can be taken against the guilty. No one has come forward and given us any evidence."
Pawar said, "It is only the Congress-NCP government that can do justice to the backward classes. During the tenure of the DF-government, Maharashtra was the only state to have allocated 11% of the budget amount for welfare schemes of backward classes. In this budget, we have made an allocation of Rs6,000 crore for the backward classes."
The deputy chief minister's statement is significant since Ramdas Athawale led RPI has aligned with Shiv Sena-BJP and with Dalit votes going to the saffron alliance looking bright.
Pawar said, "It is very unfortunate that Ramdas Athawale joined hands with communal forces just to get an MP ticket. These are the same people who had opposed giving the name of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar to Marathwada University and today just to get MP ticket someone going and joining hands with them is not right."
Reservation for Marathas
Though Pawar claimed to be unaware about the content of Narayan Rane's committee constituted for Maratha reservation, the deputy chief minister informed, "The new reservation will be in the field of education, job and politics for the Maratha community and the existing structure will remain untouched." The Rane committee submitted a report to the state government on Wednesday.
On a decision on cluster development, Pawar said, the decision will be taken on February 28.
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