Nagpur: Reiterating the commitment of union government to separate Vidarbha, union minister Nitin Gadkari said that prime minister Narendra Modi never opposed statehood to Vidarbha.
On the contrary, the BJP national executive at Bhubaneshwar had passed a resolution to this effect. He was speaking at debate on Politics of Development organised by VED at Chitnavis Centre on Sunday. Prithviraj Chavan was the other speaker. However, as on date, there are legal hurdles in creation of separate Vidarbha State, said Gadkari.
While speaking at a function organised by VED Gadkari further said that BJP would exorcise the devil of local body tax and a decision to scrap it would be taken in a month. He was speaking at the debate on Politics of Development organised by VED at Chitnavis Centre on Sunday. Prithviraj Chavan was the other speaker.
Former chief minister of Maharashtra, Prithviraj Chavan said, “though BJP, while in the Opposition, shouted from the rooftop about withdrawal of LBT, it decided to defer the issue after assuming power in the State on the pretext that GST was not rolled out.
BJP has also realised that practically it is not possible to increase surcharge on VAT. So it is adopting dilatory tactics, he said adding, ” it is one thing to be in the Opposition and another thing to run the government”.
He further said that DF government in the last ten years accorded highest priority to the development of State. However, people, particularly, youths believed that corruption had taken a toll on development and if there were no corruption, development would have been faster and better.
Similarly, RTI Act introduced by the government tumbled more skeleton from the ruling party cupboard, though people from other parties also indulged in corruption.
Brushing aside the developmental agenda of ruling BJP, Prithviraj Chavan said people were fed up of coalition politics in the last ten years. So, they decided to vote for a single party and sidestepped small parties. BJP had come closer to absolute majority even in New Delhi Assembly elections because of this sole reason, he added.
Politics of BJP centred around Modi, hence it was necessary that the party adopted policy based politics like single window clearance system, Chavan said in reply to a question.
When asked if development in Maharashtra was lopesided as Westeren Maharashtra prospered and rest of Vidarbha lagged behind, Prithviraj Chavan said since the days of the Raj, Mumbai made rapid progress due to its strategic location and availability of port.
This development of Mumbai had a trickle down effect on nearby areas like Pune, Thane and Nasik. Today major chunk of revenue for the State comes only from five cities of Maharashtra.
Despite and inspite of this, statehood to Vidarbha would not bring prosperity to this region, he cautioned.
He further said that credit for Mihan, metro and cheap power at Mihan must go to Congress and asked if BJP was ready to do away with the cross subsidy in power sector.
He said Maharashtra is a number one state in many respects, it was ahead of UP while Gujarat was in no race with the State. Hence in future electorate would vote for only such parties as are pro-progress. “Congress is ready to take this challenge of development as well as that of BJP”, he remarked. Lokmat news service
The discussion laced with light hearted humour was anchored by eminent journalist Rajdeep Sardesai before a capacity crowd comprising pro-Vidarbha votaries, political repersentatives, academia and general public. President of VED Devendra Parekh made an introductory remark.
