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By:

Abhijit Mulye

21 August 2024 at 4:59:11 pm

From Grassroots Worker to State Anchor

Part - 1 Name: Sunetra Pawar Where: Ter, Dharashiv Marking eight months in office as Maharashtra’s first woman Deputy Chief Minister during the ongoing festival celebrating women's power, Sunetra Pawar has stabilized the state administration and the Nationalist Congress Party in Mumbai and across the state through pragmatic grassroots governance following the sudden death of her husband, Ajit Pawar, in an airplane crash. Stepping into frontline administrative leadership in January this year...

From Grassroots Worker to State Anchor

Part - 1 Name: Sunetra Pawar Where: Ter, Dharashiv Marking eight months in office as Maharashtra’s first woman Deputy Chief Minister during the ongoing festival celebrating women's power, Sunetra Pawar has stabilized the state administration and the Nationalist Congress Party in Mumbai and across the state through pragmatic grassroots governance following the sudden death of her husband, Ajit Pawar, in an airplane crash. Stepping into frontline administrative leadership in January this year amid family trauma and an abrupt political vacuum, Pawar brought decades of informal administrative grounding to the Mantralaya. Although long positioned away from the political spotlight during her husband’s career, her political exposure began early as the younger sister of former state minister Padmasingh Patil. When thrust into the Deputy Chief ministership, she countered opposition jibes labelling her a "Gungi Gudia" by securing a record-breaking victory in the Baramati assembly bypoll with a margin exceeding two lakh votes. Her political resolve was further underlined by consolidating authority over family-controlled sugar cooperative mills, standing firmly beside her son during the Pune land dispute, and resisting backchannel pressure regarding an unconditional merger between the two NCP factions. Pawar’s administrative agenda has prioritized women's welfare and rural economic independence. In her very first official decision as Deputy Chief Minister, she cleared flexible work hours for women state government employees commuting across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. She subsequently steered the state’s Women’s Empowerment Bill through the legislature, a framework that has already processed aid applications from over 37 lakh women farmers. Drawing on her executive experience as chairperson of the Baramati Hi-Tech Textile Park, which generated sustained employment for more than 15,000 women, she is presently establishing a broader state policy model for decentralized textile parks and pushing for an AI Centre of Excellence in agriculture. Pawar has integrated her past constituency projects directly into statewide planning. A school initiative she launched as an MP, sending underprivileged rural students to NASA, has now been converted into an official state government scheme. Her environmental track record, rooted in transforming Katewadi into a model eco-village under the Nirmal Gram campaign and establishing the Environmental Forum of India, continues to shape state directives concerning solar power deployment, water conservation, and organic farming. Outside the Secretariat, she maintains active community oversight through the educational institutions of Vidya Pratishthan and regular visits to local old-age homes, sustaining her public identity in Baramati as an accessible social worker affectionately addressed as "Vahini." Assuming the guardian ministership of Beed—a politically sensitive and historically underdeveloped district previously handled by Ajit Pawar—she has maintained a direct public grievance system. When local schoolgirls staged a mock news report highlighting the lack of science teachers in their school, Pawar intervened immediately to fill the vacancies. Beginning her administrative day at dawn in a businesslike manner, Pawar has mirrored her late husband’s punctual work routine, prompting the ruling coalition to anchor its public outreach on the slogan: "Vahini ahet na!"

BMC auctioning three land parcels to raise funds, says Aaditya

Correspondent
Oct 18, 2024
2 min read

Updated: Oct 22, 2024

Aaditya

Mumbai: Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray on Thursday alleged Mumbai’s civic body had decided to auction three land parcels to raise funds and make up for the “loot” of the metropolis by the Eknath Shinde government.


The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, which is being run by an administrator now, has decided to auction the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Mandi (Market), the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) Malabar Hill Receiving Station and the Worli Asphalt Plant, Thackeray pointed out.


“The sale of Mumbai is being done by the Eknath Shinde regime to benefit its favourite builders and contractors,” he alleged.


A criminal investigation will be conducted into the matter after the Maha Vikas Aghadi government comes to power, Thackeray added.


“So on one end, they looted the BMC and Mumbai and gave the money to their favourite contractors. Now, by auctioning these iconic and important land parcels, the BMC will be left without both funds and plots,” the Shiv Sena (UBT) leader and former state minister claimed.


When Shiv Sena started controlling the BMC in 1997, its finances were in deficit but by 2022 his party turned around the fiscal health of the civic body, Thackeray said.


Alleging that the Shinde government wants to drive Kolis and fisherfolk out of Mumbai, he said, “We will oppose this. It has to remain and be made into a fish market, and (should be) in the ownership of the BMC.”


Aaditya puppet for urban naxals: Shelar

Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP ) Mumbai chief Ashish Shelar has called Uddhav Thackeray’s son and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray as a puppet for urban naxals after former’s comments on the Dharavi Redevelopment project and has also challenged him for a debate.

Ashish Shelar said that the project is a necessity and a priority project, adding that Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena and Congressleader Varsha Gaikwad are peddling lies.

Aaditya Thackeray seems to have become the spokesperson of urban Naxals. Without studying the subject (Dharavi) in detail, Aaditya Thackeray is speaking like an ignorant. I have seen that these people have been trying to set a narrative regarding Dharavi and the re-development work,” Ashish Shelar said.

He challenged Aaditya Thackeray and Varsha Gaikwad in a debate on the Dharavi Redevelopment Project.

“Uddhav ji and the people of his party – Aaditya Thackeray and Varsha Gaikwad have started this false narrative regarding Dharavi. I openly challenge Aaditya for a debate. I want to ask him that 70 per cent of the homes in the Dharavi Redevelopment Project will go to Marathi people, Muslims and Dalits. It is their rightful home, so why are they putting roadblocks by creating a false narrative?”

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