Attempts for Hindu consolidation ahead of polls

Mumbai: While the state cabinet showered several gifts for the recently renamed Ahilyanagar district in its meeting in the district on Tuesday, overall the decisions appear to be directed towards Hindu consolidation ahead of the local body election which are likely to take place anytime over next four months.

At the meeting of the council of ministers at Chondi, the birthplace of Maharani Ahilyadevi Holkar, a total of 11 decisions were made. These decisions can be classified in three groups, viz. decisions pertaining to amenities in the Ahilyanagar district, decisions regarding grand celebrations in the tri-centenary year of Ahilyadevi, and decisions openly aimed at consolidating the Hindu vote bank ahead of the local body elections. A closer look the decisions might make one feel there is not much difference in the decisions in the second and third group if their effect if take into account.

The cabinet decided to convert the Ahilyanagar district general hospital to an upgraded 430-bed hospital and set up a new government medical college affiliated to it with an intake capacity of 100 students. While revealing the decision to the media, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis mentioned that the state government had not given a medical college to this district when the decision to open 8 new medical colleges in October 2024 and district is now being compensated for. The government will spend Rs 485.08 crore on the project. A new ITI dedicated for women too will be started at Ahilyanagar, the CM said. The cabinet also decided to start a civil court at Rahuri in the district.

Among the second set of cabinet decisions is the decisions to produce a feature film on the life and work of Maharani Ahilyadevi. “This will be a commercial film. It will be made in several of the Indian languages apart from Marathi and the film, theatre and cultural development corporation of the state government shall coordinate the efforts of production of this film,” CM told the media.

Also, in honour to Ahilyadevi, the state government shall initiate an awareness campaign regarding economic, social, educational and health related problems faced by women. The campaign shall eventually take form of a movement that shall try to achieve goals set to do away with malnutrition, child death, raise percentage of girl child education, doing away with violence against girls and women, gender crimes etc. and honour the village panchayats that would excel in implementation of this Adishakti campaign.

The third decision in this category is about facilitating education of students from Dhangar community in English medium schools. The scheme has already been in place. Now it will be expanded, said the CM. Now under this scheme, named after Maharaja Yashwantrao Holkar, 10,000 students will benefit and a total of Rs 288.92 crore will be spent on the scheme. The cabinet also cleared yet another scheme for building hostels for students from Dhangar community at every regional headquarters with an intake capacity of 200.

Under the third set of decisions that are aimed at Hindu consolidation, the Maharashtra cabinet allocated Ra 5503 crore for restoration and renovation of temples and development plans of the holy towns. Ahilyadevi had generously donated for restoration of old temples and building shrines and ghats at holy places. Under this scheme the Maharastra cabinet decided to restore Ahilyadevi memorial at Chondi, Eight Ganesh temples in Western Maharashtra known as Ashtavinayak Mandirs, Tuljabhavani temple near Solapur, Jyotiba Temple near Kolhapur, Tryambakeshwar temple near Nashik, Mahalakshmi temple at Kolhapur and Mahurgad temple near Nanded.

To act on the footsteps of Ahilyadevi, the state cabinet also decided to restore the Ghats, wells and lakes built during her tenure in Maharashtra and the water distribution system developed by her. There are at least 3 such historic lakes, 19 wells, 6 Ghats and 6 Kundas. The state government has decided to restore all these 36 water bodies at a cost of Rs 75 crore.

The cabinet also decided to enact the Nashik-Tryambakeshwar Kumbhamela Authority ordinance 2025. Under this decisions a new authority will be set up to plan and take decisions regarding 2027 Kumbhamela at Nahsik. This is based on the authority set up by the UP government to organize the recent Mahakumbha at Prayagraj.