MVA slams Shinde govt over reservations stir in Maharashtra, boycotts customary tea meeting on eve of winter session

Mumbai: Lashing out at the Eknath Shinde-led Maha Yuti dispensation for what it described as multiple failures, the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi on Wednesday boycotted the customary tea meeting hosted by the Chief Minister on the eve of the Nagpur winter session of the Maharashtra Legislature.

Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Vijay Wadettiwar and his counterpart in the Council Ambadas Danve has also shot off a letter to Shinde, citing several issues. 

“The government is trying to create a rift between communities - Marathas vs OBCs, Dhangars vs Adivasis,” Wadettiwar told reporters in the winter capital of Nagpur. 

The two week session is slated between 7-20 December during which the MVA comprising Congress, Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena group known as Shiv Sena (UBT) and Sharad Pawar-Supriya Sule-led group of NCP is set to corner the government.

In the six-page letter, the opposition parties accused the Shinde-government of spending on publicity instead of focussing on the issues of the common people. They cited the money being spent on ‘government at your doorstep’, the flagship outreach initiative of Shinde. 

The opposition leaders said that the farmers, who are already stressed, are now facing the problem of unseasonal rains. “There are several incidents of farmers ending their lives,” they said, adding that farmers in several tehsils and districts are facing drought.

The MVA also pointed out the deaths in government hospitals of Nanded, Nagpur and Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar.