NCP leader Ajit Pawar to launch 'Jan Samman Yatra' ahead of assembly polls

Nashik: Smarting under the embarrassing defeat in the recent Lok Sabha elections, NCP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar is set to launch a mass outreach programme to prepare the ground for the upcoming Maharashtra assembly polls.

"The Yatra to be led by Ajit Pawar will be rolled out from Nashik," Nationalist Congress Party's Maharashtra unit president Sunil Tatkare said on Sunday.

Addressing NCP workers in Nashik, Tatkare credited Ajit Pawar for introducing welfare projects of Rs 1 lakh crore covering women, youths, and farmers in the state.

Interestingly, Tatkare said senior NCP leaders Chhagan Bhujbal, a state cabinet minister, and Praful Patel will get huge success in the forthcoming assembly elections.

"Ajitdada (as Ajit Pawar is popularly known in Maharashtra) has been doing effective political work for the last 35 years. His opponents are trying to defame him and other leaders of the NCP. We should work to defeat these attempts. It was Ajit Pawar who brought the Maha Vikas Aghadi government to the ground by announcing various projects," the NCP state president added.

Being a finance minister, Ajit Pawar has struck a balance between fiscal prudence and welfare schemes, he said.

"Various projects worth Rs 1 lakh crore have been started for farmers, women, students, youths and other sections," Tatkare said and asked NCP workers to make people aware of these initiatives.

The Ajit Pawar-led Yatra will traverse all 288 assembly constituencies commencing from Nashik, he added.

In recently-held Lok Sabha polls, the NCP led by Ajit Pawar could win only one of the four seats it had contested in contrast to rival NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) faction bagging 8 of 10 constituencies.

NCP is one of the constituents of the Mahayuti alliance apart from the Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and the BJP.

Senior Mahayuti or grand alliance leaders had said that the assembly polls, due in October, will be fought jointly. However, accommodating the concerns of every constituent is likely to be a tightrope walk.

The Jan Samman Yatra comes against the backdrop of a row around the ‘Mukhyamantri Mazi Ladki Bahin Yojana’ announced in the state budget by Pawar.

Under the scheme, women in the 21-65 age group with a family income of less than Rs 2.5 lakh will get Rs 1,500 monthly.

Amid questions over the huge financial burden on the state exchequer, Ajit Pawar clarified that the scheme had the approval of the finance and planning as well as other concerned departments apart from the state Cabinet.