Mumbai, Sep 4 (Agency) Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole on Sunday launched the public interaction yatra by saluting the Martyrs’ Memorial at Ashti in Wardha district of Vidarbha region. A large number of Congress functionaries and workers, including former minister and MLA Sunil Kedar, former MLA Amar Kale, State Congress vice-president Charulata Tokas, Nana Gawande, Wardha District Congress Committee president Manoj Chandurkar, Congress leaders Shekhar Shende, Pramod Hiwale were present with him. Speaking on the occasion, the MPCC chief verbally attacked the BJP-led central and the tripartite state governments in the state, accusing it of looting people.
Farmers, traders, workers, women, youths, students, all members of the society are in trouble due to the wrong policies of the government, he alleged. While inflation has broken the back of the common people, drought-like condition in some parts of the state has ruined farmers due to loss of their kharif crops, he noted and said that there is however no relief from the government. In the name of job recruitment, unemployed youths in the state are allegedly being looted and the recruitment exam papers are being cracked, the MPCC chief alleged. Continuting his attack further, he charged that the members of Maratha community who were peacefully demanding for reservation, were attacked by police personnel in Jalna, he said.
“If the central government increases the reservation limit up to 50 per cent, the problem of Maratha reservation can be solved immediately, but BJP does not have the will to give reservation to the Maratha community,” he claimed. Accusing the government of sponsoring riots at various places in the state in last few months to divert public attention from important issues, he said that even now, when the INDIA bloc’s meeting was going on in Mumbai, the government tried to divert attention by attacking innocent Maratha protesters with sticks in Jalna. Police cannot inhumanely carry out such an attack without the official order of the government, he alleged. Instead of solving the problems of people, this government was trying to destabilise the state like Manipur by creating division on communal and religious lines in the state, Patole added.