Opposition to counter BJP yatra

Mumbai: The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) look all set to counter chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’s Maha Janadesh Yatra with their own ‘yatras’.

While the Congress is believed to have discussed its “Jan Aakrosh Yatra” in the campaign committee meeting on Friday, a senior Congress leader said that the final decision is yet to be taken over it. The meeting was attended by Nana Patole, chairman of the Congress campaign committee, and seniors leaders, including Charulata Tokas, Chandrapur MP Suresh Narayan Dhanorkar, Muzaffar Hussain and Kripashankar Singh. Moreover, the Congress is also mulling a separate manifesto for Mumbai, Congress sources told The Asian Age.

A senior Congress leader familiar with the developments said that the party has decided to aggressively counter to the chief minister with the facts and figures. “The campaign committee has chalked out a plan in two parts — one is give a befitting reply, while the second part of our plan is providing an alternative through our manifesto.”

Meanwhile, NCP will kick-start its “Shivswarajya Yatra” on August 6 to flag alleged failures of the Fadnavis government. The yatra will begin from the historic Shivneri Fort — birthplace of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj — in Junnar. “During the 23-day campaign, NCP leaders will travel to 80 talukas across 22 districts, covering a distance of around 3,000 kms. The yatra will culminate at Raigad Fort on August 28,” NCP state unit chief Jayant Patil said on Saturday.

Other NCP bigwigs like Ajit Pawar, Chhagan Bhujbal, Dhananjay Munde, party MPs Supriya Sule, Udayanraje Bhosale and Amol Kolhe are likely to join the campaign too.

Ready for debate with chief minister: Nana Patole

Congress campaign committee chairman Nana Patole on Saturday said that his party has accepted chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’ challenge to hold a debate over the state of development in Maharashtra. Mr Patole added that if the party would hold a ‘Fadnavis Pardapharsh Mahamelava’ if the chief minister failed to participate in the debate.

“I have accepted his challenge. I want to know where he wants to hold the debate. He should tell the venue and time for the debate,” Mr. Patole said.    

While launching his rally at Mozari in Amravati district on Thursday, the chief minister had challenged the Congress-NCP-led Opposition to hold a debate on the state of development in the state.

The state poll campaign chief also claimed that the BJP-Sena government had not doubled the amount of development works, but the total debt of Maharashtra.   

Reacting to the chief minister’s claim that the state government has developed nearly 2,000 villages on the lines of Ralegan Siddhi, Mr Patole, a former Bhandara-Gondiya MP, said, “We want to know which are these villages that the chief minister was talking about.”

While talking about the spate of farmer suicides in Maharashtra, the farmer leader targeted Mr Fadnavis for allegedly misleading people over the drought situation in the state.

“He must disclose his plans for making Maharashtra a drought-free state. Otherwise, it is an ‘election jumla’,” he said.