Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole.
Credit: X/@Nana_Patole
Mumbai: As Dhananjay Munde continued to face multiple charges, the Congress on Wednesday mounted a major offensive against the BJP-led Maha Yuti-NDA government saying that the entire government is corrupt, not just the NCP minister.
The Congress also slammed chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and deputy chief ministers Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar.
“Whether it was the Fadnavis government from 2014 to 2019, the subsequent Shinde-Fadnavis government and the Shinde-Fadnavis-Pawar government, or the current BJP alliance government, corruption has flourished extensively under all these regimes. The competition for enjoying power is fierce among the three allied parties. It is not just one minister who is corrupt, but the entire BJP alliance government is corrupt,” state Congress president Nana Patole said.
According to him, the BJP alliance government’s cabinet is not just corrupt but also murderous.
“Instead of targeting only one minister, the entire government should be scrutinized. The serious allegations against Munde, who is the food, civil supplies and consumer protection minister (who was the agriculture minister in the previous government) are indeed concerning, but it is the BJP itself that is behind these revelations,” he said.
Referring to Suresh Dhas’ charges against Munde, he said that BJP MLA is openly exposing Munde’s corruption daily, yet the chief minister is not taking any action.
“Is this an outcome of internal conflicts between the BJP, Ajit Pawar’s NCP, and Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena? The Congress has no interest in their internal disputes. The real issues in the state concern the people—farmers are still waiting for their dues, and soybean, paddy, and onion farmers have suffered massive losses,” he said.
“The government has given money to Bangladeshi women (under Ladki Bajin Yojana) while neglecting local issues…law and order have deteriorated—just a few days ago, two murders occurred in Shirdi, and women are unsafe. In Parbhani, the police allegedly killed Somnath Suryavanshi, a young man with Ambedkarite ideology. The accused in the Badlapur case, Akshay Shinde, was killed in a staged encounter. The government is trying to cover up all these serious incidents, but as the opposition, we will not remain silent. The government must answer for all this,” said Patole.
Regarding Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi Prakash Ambedkar’s concerns about the assembly elections, Patole noted that the Congress and the MVA had already raised the same issues. “The Congress has even lodged a complaint with the Election Commission, which has undermined democracy. If Prakash Ambedkar has taken the matter to court, Congress hopes for justice, as Rahul Gandhi also highlighted the issue in Parliament,” he said.