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Journalism of Courage
MUMBAI, January 8: Despite some very spirited oratory, Chief Minister Manohar Joshi could do little to salvage his visit to five of the 21 villages which have boycotted all civic, assembly and parliamentary elections since 1991 to protest their amalgamation into the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC).
The issue of the 21 villages (with a poulation of over 25,000) has been unresolved for a long time. Besides complaining that they will lose the privileges they enjoy in the gram panchayats, the villagers feel KDMC has failed in providing even water, roads and sanitation in spite of collecting taxes from them since 1983, when KDMC was formed.
Blaming the earlier Congress rule for neglect of the region, Joshi said, “The fight here seems to be more for development than identity or existence.” He promised to find a solution acceptable to all in a week’s time. There were the odd claps ocassionally, but for most of the time the thousands who came expecting a final decision simply didn’t respond.
Yet,going by the treatment they gave Labour Minister Shabir Sheikh who spoke earlier, they were kind. Expletives, booing and screams of “traitor” rent the air (even from women in the audience) when Sheikh mentioned he would support only “the keeping out of a few villages from KDMC in cases where it was found appropriate.” In fact, so ugly was the mob’s mood that it took the Gramin Vikas Sangharsh Samiti’s (GVSS) president Rajaram Salwi’s entreaties and threats to make the audience quiet. A visibly shaken Sheikh was so disturbed that he wound up his speech soon afterwards. “I hope the CM has a happy announcment to make to all of us on our Independence Day on January 26 (sic),” he said before beating a hasty retreat.
Both Salwi and vice-presdent of GVSS Ganesh Mhatre in their speeches earlier had referred pointedly to Sheikh’s written promise (when he contested from this consitituency during Assembly polls) to ensure that all 27 villages are unshackled from KDMC. The others present on the ocassion includedTourism Minister Jagannath Patil, ex-MP Ram Kapse, Sena leader Anant Tare and KDMC mayor Anita Dalwi.
Deputy CM Gopinath Munde, accompanied by Ministers Jagannath Patil and Shabir Sheikh, had visited the villages and promised to “find a way out of the imbroglio in 15 days” on March 20, 1998. They were accompanied on thier visit by then Thane guardian minister Ganesh Naik (who still wields clout in the area) and GVSS president Rajaram Salwi. Also on the CM’s itinerary was the inauguration of an 120-bed-capacity strcutre of KDMC’s Rukminbai hospital and a vegetable market complex in Dombivli.
