top of page

By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Battered but not beaten

Congress vows to go alone in BMC polls Mumbai:  Rubbishing soothsayers’ predictions of political irrelevance in the just concluded polls to 288 municipal councils and Nagar Panchayats in the state, the Maharashtra Congress claimed it has made a strong comeback with a notable performance. The party independently secured 41 posts of Municipal Presidents and 1,006 Councillor seats, plus 7 Municipal Presidents and 154 Councillors from Congress-supported local alliance, said state party President...

Battered but not beaten

Congress vows to go alone in BMC polls Mumbai:  Rubbishing soothsayers’ predictions of political irrelevance in the just concluded polls to 288 municipal councils and Nagar Panchayats in the state, the Maharashtra Congress claimed it has made a strong comeback with a notable performance. The party independently secured 41 posts of Municipal Presidents and 1,006 Councillor seats, plus 7 Municipal Presidents and 154 Councillors from Congress-supported local alliance, said state party President Harshwardhan Sapkal. Conceding that polls bring both wins or losses, Sapkal said “the Congress has survived many such seasons in its long political journey”, while party leaders reiterated that it will “go solo in the BMC elections and in other civic bodies, local-level partnerships will be forged as directed by the AICC high command”. “The results are a clear verdict in favour of democratic values over money power. Our performance again proved that ‘trust is greater than money and ideology is more important than power’. Despite limited resources and no access to state machinery, we fought with courage, conviction, grassroots mobilisation and structural strength, that have unnerved the ruling dispensation,” thundered Sapkal. Organisational Push The organisational push was aggressively led by Sapkal himself, along with senior leaders M. Arif Naseem Khan and Vijay Wadettiwar and a few others who campaigned vigorously across regions, including weak pockets. “The results are a fitting reply to those who keep prophesying that the Congress is finished. The voters have decisively rejected attempts to fracture social harmony in the name of caste and religion. They have given thumbs up to the Congress ideology which alone can safeguard the nation,” Sapkal contended. “In this ideological battle, we have not strayed even an inch. Congress lives in peoples’ hearts. We thank all our workers, candidates and voters for their support and reposing faith in us. We are now preparing for the upcoming Municipal Corporations and Zilla Parishad polls to save the state from the corrupt Mahayuti regime,” declared Sapkal. Pep talk masks a saga of Sabotage Behind the post-results optimism and celebratory rhetoric lies a more troubling development - of alleged sabotage and aloofness by several regional and state-level leaders during the recent civic polls, party insiders claim. Despite the official display of ‘collective effort and ideological resolve’, the ground reality was very different and may have cost the party at least 35-40 posts of Municipal President and nearly a 1000-plus Councillors. Multiple functionaries commended how the Sapkal-Khan-Wadettiwar trio carried out the campaign almost single-handedly, wading “neck deep” into rallies, meetings and field mobilisation, but most influential leaders chose to keep away. “Many didn’t bother to lift a finger, even in their own strongholds. Attempts to rope them in joint rallies even in their own strongholds failed; their phones were either not-reachable or switched-off,” confided a senior office-bearer, preferring anonymity. This proved deeply frustrating for everyone, especially grassroots workers who were valiantly battling the well-oiled Mahayuti campaign machinery on the ground, he pointed out. Concurring, another senior functionary said that if the local satraps had given a united push, the poll results could have altered dramatically and Congress could have exceeded its 2017 performance despite fewer local bodies at the time.

Crores siphoned off, yet no courage to probe

Khaki, Black Money - Part 4

 

State’s police machinery is sinking in the mire of corruption

AI Generated Image
AI Generated Image

Kolhapur: By law, every government employee is required to file an annual statement of assets held in their own name and that of their family members. The Supreme Court has repeatedly underlined this obligation. Yet, ask a simple question: how many actually file these disclosures on time? How many senior officers ever bother to seek an explanation when they don’t? The blunt answer is — almost none.


The reason is obvious. No one wants to declare assets, no one feels compelled to, and crucially, no one is ever held accountable. Instead, this loophole has been brazenly exploited to erect personal empires of wealth. Among all departments, the police rank disturbingly high. Armed with khaki uniforms, batons and pistols, sections of the force have turned into licensed predators. The plunder of Maharashtra continues unabated — and those in power, themselves mired in scams, find police reform deeply inconvenient.


Today, the Maharashtra government has digitised land records across the state. Property registrations are available online. If even a modicum of intent existed, an AI-enabled audit cell could be set up overnight to map police officers’ declared income against their actual assets. The results would be explosive. It would expose how ordinary citizens were systematically fleeced, how accused persons were beaten into submission to grow illegal cash crops, and how complainants themselves were extorted under the guise of “cross-examination”. What is missing is not technology, but political will — and public pressure. Without a mass demand, this rotten edifice will not collapse.


Some officers own hundreds of acres of land. Others have invested in hotel chains, real estate empires, or live in palatial homes that would shame royal estates. Where did this money come from? Ironically, these very officers lead agitations demanding pay commission hikes. Their salaries, it seems, are irrelevant — daily “top-up income” flows far more reliably. There have been officers who walked into offices with empty wallets in the morning, threatening staff that the wallet must be full by evening. Once juniors realised the boss’s appetite, the entire machinery descended into organised extortion. Many careers were destroyed, many lives ruined — but Maharashtra’s law and order apparatus looked away.


The police force was created to ensure citizens live without fear — “Sadrakshanaya, Khalnigrahanaya”. Today, it is the common citizen who trembles before stepping into a police station, while goons, fixers and habitual offenders move in and out with swaggering ease. Matka and gutkha are officially banned, yet flourish openly. Liquor is smuggled from Goa with police escorts and red beacons. Businesses and citizens are crushed under hafta demands. Drug peddling has turned Maharashtra into a floating narcotics market for its youth.


Transfers of officers require suitcases of cash; transfers of constables require cartons. The system has full authority to crack down on corrupt and irresponsible personnel — but when both sides are partners in crime, accountability becomes a farce. What survives is not law, but collusion.

Comments

bottom of page