With Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting Maharashtra for the Assembly election campaign, the Congress on Thursday asked what was his “vision to address water scarcity in Marathwada”.
In a message posted on “X”, party general secretary Jairam Ramesh said, in 2019 the then Maharashtra Chief Minister Fadnavis had promised a Rs20,000-Rs25,000 crore package to build a water grid from Marathwada that would supply piped drinking water to every village.
He said the summer this year marked five years of this promise – and it was one of the most water-scarce years that Marathwada has faced. However, Ramesh said, “More than 600 villages and 178 hamlets in Marathwada were dependent on water tankers amidst an acute drinking water shortage.
Only 19% drinking water was left in reservoirs.” So, he asked, what has the BJP done to tackle water scarcity in Marathwada? The Congress leader also posed two other questions – one pertaining to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and the other to the alleged neglect of Nanded by the Railways.
He said Raigad was the capital of Shivaji and seven years ago the PM laid the foundation stone for a 696 feet statue of Shivaji Maharaj in the Arabian Sea near Mumbai. However, he said, the project has since been silently abandoned by his government.
He also claimed that after the Lok Sabha elections came on June 4, the Centre ‘removed the statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj from its place of prominence outside the Parliament House’. Ramesh also charged that “the Mahayuti didn’t even spare the Chhatrapati from its extortion and loot”, saying “the 35-ft statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj at Rajkot Fort in Sindhudurg was made so shoddily that it collapsed within a year of its inauguration.”
