The battle lines have been drawn for the Raigad Lok Sabha constituency in Maharashtra, where two heavyweights are in the fray following splits in their respective parties. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) led by Ajit Pawar has given a ticket to its state president and incumbent MP, Sunil Tatkare, and the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) has again shown confidence in veteran leader and former central cabinet minister in the first Narendra Modi government Anant Geete. News18 spoke to Geete while he was on the campaign trail in Raigad. Polling for the constituency will be held in the third phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, on May 7.
Anant Geete was defeated in 2019 by a margin of 30,000 votes but is confident of a win this time in the constituency, which he has represented for six terms in the Lok Sabha. From 2014 to 2019, when the then undivided Shiv Sena was in an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party, Geete was union minister of heavy industries.
The Shiv Sena (UBT) leader was doing door-to-door campaigning in Nagothane village when News18 caught up with him. Geete paid a visit to local leaders of the Muslim community and assured them that Shiv Sena (UBT) was with them and that whatever issues they faced in the past five years would be resolved once he won the election. Most of the people whom Geete met told him to look into the Mumbai-Goa highway project, work on which has been going on for 15 years.
“Mumbai-Goa highway is the oldest highway in the country. Many highways have been developed in recent times but the Mumbai-Goa highway is yet to be completed. When the Mumbai-Goa highway expansion proposal came, at that time I was the central minister and Nitin Gadkari was the road and transport minister. When the National Highways Authority of India was asked to float a tender for this highway, the state government and then PWD minister Chhagan Bhujbal stopped the project. He said that the state government will make this road. So the first phase of 84 km between Panvel and Indapur of Mumbai-Goa highway was with the state government and that phase is in a pathetic state,” Geete told News18.
Later, the state government too shrugged off responsibility and many ministers came but the situation remained the same, he said. “The second hurdle we faced was that minister Nitin Gadkari experimented with PPP (public-private partnership) on this road despite our reservations about it. Due to this scheme, this road got stuck. I had told him several times not to do any experiment with this road and requested him to hand over this road to NHAI but he was confident that the road would get constructed. Under this scheme, the central govt will make a 10% investment for land acquisition, 30% of Contractors will pay for the project and the remaining 60% of banks will give loans on the guarantee of the central govt. Mumbai-Goa highway got stuck in this Scheme. Later, banks also withdrew from this scheme,” said the candidate. Geete also stated that he has kept this project on top of his list of priorities.
The six-time MP from the constituency accepted that proper development hadn’t happened here despite Raigad being close to Mumbai. “One of the reasons behind this is that Raigad district was declared a chemical zone. Raigad is a coastal constituency and there is a huge scope for tourism but the lack of infrastructure for tourism has also led to non-development. In my first term as MP, I had put forth a vision of joining Alibaug (in Raigad) to Mumbai via rail. After so many years, it is happening. Now Mumbaikars can come to Alibaug via train. The project has been sanctioned now,” he told News18.
This will boost the local economy and help generate more jobs, said Geete. “Usually, such big projects get stuck in land acquisition, but when I was central minister, while planning it we made sure that we would not put in new track lines and instead, we used the existing track line, which RCF (Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers) used to transport their goods. We made that a passenger line. And this project has been sanctioned and I hope I will inaugurate this line after winning this election. I have a plan to get more industries which will create jobs for residents of Raigad,” he said.
Geete also admitted that the youths of Raigad are migrating to cities like Mumbai and even Pune which are now new IT and manufacturing hubs. Due to a lack of opportunities in Raigad, youngsters are going to these cities for education and jobs.
“The youths of Raigad are migrating to Mumbai due to the proximity and opportunities they have there. As I said, due to the chemical zone many industries have come up but there are not enough jobs available for the youth. Due to ‘automation’ in the chemical industry here, there are no opportunities for them in Raigad MIDC. I have brought many industries here and in future will bring more industries to Raigad, which will create more jobs and the youth of Raigad won’t have to go to Mumbai and Pune hunting for them,” he said.
Geete also shared one incident which happened to him when he was a central minister in the first cabinet of Modi govt. “I had a plan of bringing one paper mill project here. Everything was done, only we had to announce it in the cabinet and make it official. When I met the PM, he said running industries is not the job of the government. And then that file was closed forever. I do understand that running industries is not the job but we have to understand the local situation. If we want to produce jobs then industries should be set up locally. Local people will get work and the economy will get a boost. Big industries were set up considering the same view by former PMs in different areas of the country,” he said.
Geete has been criticised by his opponent Tatkare, saying he was missing in action and the field for around five years. After the defeat in 2019, Geete is being seen in the field only now when elections are underway and he has got a ticket, say rivals. To this criticism, Geete replied, “Those who are trying to put allegations against me, I can’t stop them. But let me tell them that by making such allegations they are insulting the people of Raigad. These voters have given me a mandate six times. Sunil Tarkare who is contesting against me will get answers for all his questions and allegations levelled against me in this election from these voters only.”
Geete is raising the issue of corruption while meeting people to convince them not to vote for the NCP. “The PM had levelled allegations against NCP and Ajit Pawar that they were corrupt. I have never levelled allegations against them. Media has got clips of the PM’s speech where he called the NCP ‘Naturally Corrupt Party’, and the leader of that party indulged in the irrigation scam. So my battle is against corruption, and Sunil Tatkare being a leader and candidate of this party, I will be raising the issue of corruption in this election,” said the contestant.
Stay Ahead With all the Lok Sabha Election 2024 Related Real-Time Updates At News18 Website.
Comments
0 comment