There is another side to western Maharashtra. If the sugar belt denotes its happy face, travel to some of the semi-parched areas in the backyard. Where the rains have failed again, where people are being reduced to penury once again. In the din of the elections, nobody has time for them. Their cries for help have been drowned and the few who have cared to listen offer them nothing more than lip-sympathy.Drive along the 125-km stretch from Miraj to Pandharpur and you will find that the streams have dried up and the Maan does not look like a river anymore. Full of sand with a few green puddles here and there. All pointers to the rain god playing truant and putting a curse on the land.Kalyan Kamble, a farmer from Mangalwedha taluka, hangs around the election office of Sandipan Thorat, Congress candidate for the Pandharpur Lok Sabha seat. He has nothing to do. ``The kharif season is almost gone. Once these elections are over, I'll have to start preparing for the rabi crop.'' He does not know whether thegovernment tried to provide farmers with water for irrigation.Kamble is not alone. A pregnant woman from Sangewadi too has come to enquire how soon her family can get drinking water. She heads for a politician's office because she was told .you can get anything done during elections.In Man, Atpadi, Kavathe-Mahankal and Sangola area, you will come across everything that has gone wrong with rural Maharashtra. There is nothing here to suggest that the basic needs of the people are being addressed, that over Rs 10,000 crore is being spent to harness the Krishna water. In the backyard of the sugar belt, where there are three score sugar factories, these are hard times.According to revenue officials, the rain shortage in August was acute. Under normal monsoon conditions, Solapur receives an average of 299 mm rainfall till August-end. This year the figure hovers around 244 mm.Politicians don't discuss the possibility of droughts. And when they do, the issue is politicised. Anandrao Deokate, Congresscandidate for the Solapur South Assembly seat, blames it all on ``the faulty planning by the Sena-BJP government.'' He complains: ``The region is heading for another round of drought conditions. This has delayed the rabi sowing. And nothing is being done.''Almost every village in this area carries tell-tale signs of the havoc. Anand Kothadia, a social worker from Karmala taluka, says successive governments are to be collectively blamed.. He cites the example of drinking water shortage in villages forced to relocate by the Ujani dam. ``In Ujani, availability of water is not a problem. Yet not a single scheme worked,'' Kothadia says.In Solapur city, the issue of sick cotton mills which used to be an election talking point .seems to have taken a back seat. The mill workers have been left to their fate. Across the region, it is the time to despair. All over again.
