Even as Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis made claims of his government having solved several lingering problems pertaining to Kolhapur district, protests from the Opposition greeted him during his Mahajanadesh Yatra on Tuesday.
The NCP youth wing, late on Monday, put up a number of billboards along the route of the rally, accusing Mr. Fadnavis and the Bharatiya Janata Party-led (BJP) government of deceiving the people.
According to the police, unidentified people also blackened hoardings of Mr. Fadnavis and BJP State president Chandrakant Patil, who is also Kolhapur’s Guardian Minister, ahead of the rally. The police removed the hoardings before the Chief Minister’s convoy passed through those points.
The NCP youth wing spoofed the Chief Minister’s statement in Marathi, “Meech parat yein (I will return as CM)” by putting up posters saying “Mee pastavtoy (I am regretting)”, meaning that the people of Maharashtra were regretting voting the BJP to power.
On Monday, workers of the Raju Shetti-led Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana (SSS) hurled Kadaknath breed chickens and eggs at the Chief Minister’s convoy in Sangli district to protest the government’s alleged foot-dragging in the Kadaknath poultry scam. Mr. Shetti and the SSS have been demanding that the Enforcement Directorate investigate a poultry firm that they claim has cheated farmers of ₹550 crore by promising to help them rear the Kadaknath chickens.
Meanwhile, at road shows at a number of points in Kolhapur, Mr. Fadnavis reiterated the government’s plan to undertake a project to divert excess water from flood-affected areas to parched regions like Marathwada.
Claiming that his government had completed a number of irrigation projects that had been hanging fire, he also said that it had kept its promise of making Kolhapur a toll-free district.