Mumbai: Senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar Thursday said Maharashtra is facing a drought worse than the one witnessed in 1972 and asked chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to charter a flight to bring a Central drought assessment team to the state. Addressing a press conference here, Mr Pawar slammed the state government and claimed that figures involving the number of villages facing drought have been “fudged” and that people were being “misled”.

“Had the state government been serious about getting drought relief from the Centre, it would have sent a chartered flight to bring the Central drought assessment team. The chief minister keeps using chartered flights. Why is he waiting for more suicides to take place before drought is declared?” he asked. He also demanded that the government provide financial aid of Rs 50,000 per acre to farmers reeling under severe drought. Mr Pawar said the Prime Minister, on his Shirdi visit recently, had “lied” that the state government had made 16,000 villages drought-free.