Author: Express News Service
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: July 3, 2006
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/7778.html
Introduction: Why is govt going soft on Sanandas,
asks Oppn leader Kadam, says Cong-led coalition has failed to prevent farmer
suicides, provide rehab
With the monsoon session of Maharashtra Assembly
starting tomorrow, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh is under Opposition fire
for asking the state to go easy on Vidarbha's most influential money-lender,
Congress MLA Dilip Sananda, and his family.
As the CM today announced a relief package
worth Rs 10,000 crore for Vidarbha, Ramdas Kadam, Opposition leader in the
Assembly, said: "We are taking up the issue of Deshmukh's gesture of
asking (police and government) officials to be soft on Dilip Sananda."
This apart, "We are also going to take
the government to task on the issue of farmers' suicides and its total failure
in preventing suicides and providing relief to the kin of victims."
As first reported by The Indian Express, no
less than the Chief Minister came out in support of the Sanandas though police
records showed that over 40 cases had been registered against them for illegal
money-lending, land grabbing to kidnapping, manhandling to torture.
But Kadam said the Opposition would not stop
at the Chief Minister. They plan to "expose" state Revenue Minister
Narayan Rane for not keeping his promise (made during the last session) of
rehabilitating Konkan farmers hit by floods last year.
"Rane had promised to rehabilitate farmers
and had said that there would be no shortage of funds. He has not kept his
promise," said Kadam.
Maintaining that the Democratic Front government
had "failed on all fronts", he said: "Malnutrition has not
remained confined to tribal areas, but has reached Mumbai." The state
government, he said, was "totally indifferent to the plight of the common
man, be it the farmer or a poor citizen."
The monsoon session is also likely to see
the Shiv Sena cornering Rane. Soon after he defected to the Congress last
year, Rane had an upper hand on the Sena. But during the last session, Sena
MLAs took on the Konkan strongman head-on.
Among the important Bills likely to be discussed
are indirect elections of presidents of municipal councils (as the state's
experiment with direct elections has backfired); option of levying property
tax on capital value. Ordinances which are to be converted into Bills include
the provision for 25 per cent reservations for backward classes in professional
educational institutions.
