JOIN USWrecked by farmers’ suicides and botched up aid package, people of Vidarbha have given their clear backing to the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of development in the Maharashtra Assembly elections.
The region could well be rewarded with one of their representatives likely getting the chief ministerial position.
Though the region’s statehood demand goes back several decades, sources in Maharashtra’s intelligence apparatus and political analysts said after the results that the region has voted for focused and fast development.
The BJP should be able to handle the statehood issue, which continues to be potent, but the more immediate challenge for the new saffron dispensation would be addressing farmer suicides and bring development to Vidarbha and other remote regions of Maharashtra.
Maoism also remains a burning issue in at least two districts in the region.
State BJP president Devendra Fadnavis has emerged as the frontrunner for the chief minister’s post. If successful, he would be the fourth Maharashtra chief minister from Vidarbha. Union Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari’s name has also been doing the rounds, despite his strident denials of being in the race for the job.
Both Fadnavis and Gadkari have strong RSS backgrounds and hail from Maharashtra’s winter capital and the biggest city in Vidarbha, Nagpur, where the RSS also has its headquarters.
So far, three chief ministers from Vidarbha have served Maharashtra –Marotrao Kannamwar (1962-63), V P Naik (1963-75) and Sudhakarrao Naik (1991-93).
In the Vidhan Sabha polls, the BJP has bagged 43 out
of 62 seats in Vidarbha, while the Congress’ tally dropped from 24 in the previous polls to just 10.
The BJP’s keenness to create a votary of small states may have helped it increase its tally of 19 in the previous elections, but farmers’ suicide has dominated the poll discourse in the cotton rich region.
Shiv Sena, which favours a unified Maharashtra, only managed five seats in Vidarbha as against eight in the last three elections.
In the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP-Sena combine swept the region bagging six and four seats respectively.
Vidarbha is made of Nagpur and Amravati administrative divisions. While Akola, Amravati, Buldhana, Washim and Yavatmal fall in Amravati division, Nagpur, Wardha, Bhandara, Chandrapur, Gadchiroli and Gondia belong to the Nagpur division.
Gadchiroli district has been used as an oscillating point from Andhra Pradesh
to Chhattisgarh by Maoist rebels.
Killing fields
“Thousands of farmers had committed suicide in the region and this is still continuing,” said Kishor Tiwari of Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, a farmer’s group, before the polls.
Former prime minister Manmohan Singh had announced a special package for the region, while former agriculture minister Sharad Pawar worked out a loan waver scheme that failed to materialise. “It is the world’s worst agrarian crisis. A majority of the farmers are from Yavatmal district and the rest from Washim, Amravati, Nagpur, Wardha and Akola,” government officials said.