State coal for poll-bound states?

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has openly accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government of giving away all the coal meant for Maharashtra to poll-bound states, in order to avoid load-shedding there.

“Our state is undergoing 10 hours of impromptu loadshedding, which is obviously politically motivated. All the coal meant for Maharashtra is deliberately being diverted to Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh,” alleged NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik. He added, “To avoid the risk of incurring popular wrath brought on by load-shedding in these BJPruled states at this crucial juncture, the Devendra Fadnavis-led government here is happily putting our citizens through hell.”

Malik said that the Fadnavis government is willing to keep its state in the dark in order to keep his party’s light burning bright in pollbound states. “Till the elections were announced, Rajasthan had power outages every day. Now, suddenly, there is no load-shedding, nor lack of coal in that state. On the other hand, suddenly Maharashtra has gone into darkness for the last 10 days and this is exactly why,” alleged Malik.

Under the Narmada project agreement, Gujarat is bound to give Maharashtra 400 MW of power and now this too is not available. “The government is lying that there is a national shortage of coal there is no such thing,” charged Malik. He further alleged, “Power Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule cannot be disturbed, because he is busy looking for opportunities to ensure his wife bags contracts.”

Malik concluded saying NCP will undertake a ‘kandeel’ (lantern) Andolan on October 12 in every district where there is load-shedding.