How the Maharashtra Elections May Get Ugly over Panvel Toll

The dates for the 2014 Maharashtra Elections have been announced. Elections in Maharashtra and Haryana will be held on 15th October. With less than 1 month to go, the political scenario in each state is bound to heat up. Young Indian politicians will look to do all they can to ensure they can come into power.

Young Indian Politicians

 Ahead of the 2014 Maharashtra Elections, the Panvel/Kharghar toll issue has taken a lot of prominence. What started as a proposal by the government to retrieve the 1,220 crore rupees spent by the Public Works Department (PWD) on the Sion Panvel Highway has become a full blown issue. The latest update of this is the resignation of Maharashtra MLA Prashant Thakur with displayed angst over the inability of the State Government to come to a consensus on the issue.

 Let’s give you a brief background. The State Government, led by Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan, declared that a toll booth would be set up at Kharghar. This was because, as stated earlier, the government wanted to retrieve the Rs. 1,200 crore spent on development of the Sion Panvel highway. Maharashtra MLA Prashant Thakur, MP Ganesh Naik and other politicians of the Navi Mumbai area vehemently opposed this. Prashant Thakur stated that he wanted all vehicles of residents of the Panvel taluka to be exempted from this toll. On the foundation laying day for the toll booth, he and his party members staged a protest. What followed was a meeting of him and Congress Party members with CM Prithviraj Chavan, where the latter agreed to exempt vehicles with license numbers MH-46 and MH-06 from the Panvel toll. He even went on to state that he would form a committee, which would include Maharashtra MLA Prashant Thakur, to work on the feasibility of eliminating all toll plazas from Maharashtra. This was music to most people’s ears and the MLA declared victory.

 The CM and deputy CM Ajit Pawar then stated that they would like Navi Mumbai’s governing body CIDCO to bear the expenses, a proposal which the CIDCO officials openly rebuffed. They stated that this was a gimmick for the 2014 Maharashtra Elections and stated that they could not be expected to pay up simply because they were a cash rich organization. What followed was some feet dragging on the issue and Ganesh Naik and Prashant Thakur becoming even more vocal in their protest against apathy displayed by the State government on the issue. Today, when the dates for the 2014 Maharashtra Elections were declared and no concrete decision was taken by the State government, Maharashtra MLA Prashant Thakur tendered his resignation. He stated that he took this step for the benefit of his people, that he would stay loyal to the Congress party but would not contest the 2014 Maharashtra Elections as a candidate. Further course of action from the State Government and its fallout remains to be seen.

 Toll plazas are quite a sensitive issue in the state. They have come in for lots of flak from people and have been taken up by parties like MNS and Congress. The appalling state of roads despite toll being collected for over a decade now is one of the reasons for people’s ire. Plus vehicles having to pay toll when plying on the roads everyday becomes an even more expensive affair in this age of inflation. The State government must look into this issue and come up with a swift and populist resolution if they want to survive the 2014 Maharashtra Elections.

The run up to the 2014 Maharashtra State Elections

The 2014 Maharashtra Elections are around the corner. Dates will be declared in this week and they will be between 20th October and 5th November i.e. after checking the dates of Dusshera, Diwali and the scope of deploying armed forces accordingly in the State. Political parties are gearing up in their constituencies to propagate and campaign to ensure they bag the number of seats which they aim for in the Legislative Assembly.

As always, there are few main contenders for the State elections. While there are parties locally which will offer stiff competition, the parties battling for the top spot at the state level are generally the same. The main parties contesting the 2014 Maharashtra Elections are the Indian National Congress (INC), the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Shiv Sena. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) does not have as strong a hold in Maharashtra, and hence will continue to contest the 2014 Maharashtra Elections in alliance with the Shiv Sena. However, the former is buoyed by the party’s landslide victory at the Centre and must be hoping to ride the tide in the state elections also. If people vote for the BJP in large enough numbers, the party may choose to form the State Government independently without any support. Coalitions have always been rocky. Just like the Sena-BJP alliance, the Congress-BCP alliance has not been a smooth ride for either party. The NCP has repeatedly displayed displeasure at having to play second fiddle to the INC. Head honcho Sharad Pawar has been vocal about his desire to break the alliance and ensure the NCP works independently. Cracks in the relation were visible when the NCP publicly called for the removal of State Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, a Congressman. However, since neither party has managed to get a distinct majority in the state, it looks like they will continue to contest the 2014 Maharashtra Elections as an alliance.

Maharashtra prepares for 2014 elections

Another party worth mentioning in these elections is the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). Led by the dynamic young Indian politician Raj Thackeray, the party has made all the right noises and received attention in the past few years. The MNS took up the issue of road toll, though nothing concrete came out of it. They have shown that they are a party filled with young Indian politicians who are exuberant and are focused on development more than the others. Following Raj Thackeray’s positioning MNS as a youth party, Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray entered his son Aditya into politics to match the MNS blow for blow.

Parties are welcoming young Indian politicians so that they can be seen as youth friendly and development friendly. They are currently campaigning enthusiastically to remind common man of their actions and implementations in the last 5 years. Times have not been too kind to the Congress-NCP alliance though. Deputy CM Ajit Pawar has drawn a lot of flak for numerous insensitive remarks against farmers during the draught. It is now upon young Indian politicians to drive development in Maharashtra the way the Prime Minister is driving it for the country. Policies are being made and funding being offered for development of rural areas and the Central government is looking to rope in support of State governments for the same. There was never a better time for young Indian politicians to rise up to the occasion and prove their mettle. The 2014 Maharashtra Elections will be decisive in deciding the future of the State.

Panvel Development through Young Indian Politicians

If we were to read history, we would see many examples of circumstances when young people with ideas were regarded as arrogant. And this is not because they are, but it is because it was difficult for the elders to accept that someone with less experience can have the necessary knowledge to run a community, moreover a country.

Even literature depicts how traditional communities listen to only what elders say; and whatever they have suggested must be carried out by all members of the community. But today, developments in Panvel are breaking that tradition because people are starting to realize that even the young bloods can rule with a certain degree of maturity that will bring benefit to the community.

Panvel development is a great example of how young Indian politicians are able to make a big difference. Panvel used to be an ignored city and was overlooked for its potential, but today, the city is hopeful of surpassing expectations and performing better than Navi Mumbai through the development it is currently going through. And those hopes are becoming more real because now, the city is attracting a lot of infrastructure developers, especially because the government has approved the construction of an international airport in the area. Once Panvel development is done, it is expected that the cost of land in the area will be more expensive than it is a few years ago.

The following are some of the Panvel development projects done on the city.

• The government has given approval for the construction of an international airport that will handle some two million passengers who will be flying in and from Mumbai. Most importantly, this airport is supposed to complement another international airport, Chatrapati Shivaj so that the current massive number of flights is handled properly.
• The flow of traffic will be better because of the construction of an elevated bridge that goes across the city.
• In addition to this bridge, a six lane road was constructed from Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) to NH 17 in order to lessen heavy traffic flow to and from the city.
• The city has opened its doors to people looking for opportunities of townships in the city through land acquisition and large infrastructure companies.
• There have been grants from the government and the MMRDA for the concreting of roads. There have been incentives for agriculture as well.

Further more, young Indian politicians are taking the initiative to work hard for further improvements and developments. They have been regularly doing charitable activities such as providing notebooks for school children who need them most, and taking care of the aged people by providing them with umbrellas, among others.

Indeed, young Indian politicians are proving themselves in the public eye by getting involved in social problems. In the past, citizens have cried for the government to take action and not simply to listen to their grievances. Today, citizens of Panvel are enjoying the benefits of being led by the younger generation of politicians because so far, they have seen many improvements which have made the city more promising.

Young Indian Politicians must Fix Ailing India’s Problems

Ahead of the 2014 Maharashtra elections and those in 10 other states, some issues continue to plague the Indian economy. Of them, inflation remains the biggest concern. Basically, inflation is the increase in price of goods over the past. These goods are food items, luxury goods and anything which can be sold.

Ailing India

Inflation is measured through 2 indices – Wholesale Price Index (WPI) and Consumer Price Index (CPI). As the terms suggest, WPI measures the increase of wholesale prices, while CPI measures how much increase in prices impact common man. The government declares inflation in terms of WPI, but it is CPI which impacts common man more.

Since the past 5 years, prices of primary foods i.e. foods which are consumed daily by people have increased almost 200%. Onions, tomatoes, chillies, sugar and other food prices have more than doubled, causing pain to common man. It has hurt daily wage workers more, who rely on onions for their daily diet of zunka bhakar. Fruits and dairy products have not been spared either, with prices rising so quickly that it’s only the rich who can afford them regularly.

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has caused the cost of labour for agriculture to increase. Still, there hasn’t been a drastic depletion in the output of food grains despite the declared draught in the past 2 years. However, there has been a shortage of food in the market, leading to price rise. Most people in India are now of the opinion that this shortage is artificially induced due to hoarding. This occurs when the middlemen (read wholesalers) deliberately store food grains and prevent them from being sold in the market. The scarcity leads to increase in price which invariably translates into more profit for the middlemen. These middlemen have large cartels which are in good standings with major politicians, meaning they get away with such illegal activities and make money at the expense of common and poor man.

Young politicians of India have to step in to take action. They have to fix these problems of artificially induced shortages and draughts at the root. This means improving irrigation channels for agriculture and eliminating middlemen from trade. Irrigation channels are in pitiable condition, ignored since decades by the government. Millions of litres of rainwater each year get wasted because of lack of infrastructure to harvest them. If irrigation technology is improved, India will not have to suffer from water shortage in fields. Also, it is no secret middlemen have had a long standing relationship with senior politicians. Young politicians have to implement policies which remove middlemen from the picture and allow farmers directly to deal with retailers. This will ensure farmers get fairly paid for their yield and common man gets food for right prices. Lower economic classes will be able to afford food more often and the nutrition index of India will improve.

India is at an important junction right now. From here, the country can either become a force to reckon with, or fade away into oblivion like many other countries which promised much more. The torch of development and progress has to be taken up by young Indian politicians who place the country before themselves. A population of more than 120 crore people depends upon them.

Will the Panvel Development Story be Different from that of Navi Mumbai?

Development in Panvel has been at record pace lately. Panvel, the city which is the gateway to the MMR – Mumbai Metropolitan Region, is set to become the new gateway to Maharashtra’s hinterland. This city has been a middle-class area, while other nodes of Navi Mumbai have been affluent. However, while the lack of government will to push for progress might hurt Navi Mumbai, it’s unlikely that such issues will plague Panvel’s development.

Panvel development

The powers and functions of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly

The governance in India consists of a three tier system. In this the Central or the Union Government holds the highest position. The State Government holds the second highest position or is the second tier followed by the District Municipalities and Panchayats in the respective states and districts which forms the third tier.

The Maharashtra Legislative Assembly or the Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha is known as the lower house of the dual legislature of Maharashtra. The MLA in Maharashtra works out of the capital city of Mumbai, that is, at Nariman Point in south Mumbai. At present there are 288 members of the Assembly that are elected directly, apart from the one member which is nominated. The Maharashtra Vidhan Parishad is known to be the upper house and the members are indirectly elected with the help of an electoral college.

MLA In Maharashtra

3 Social Media savvy Politicians of Maharashtra

Social media has become an integral part of our lives. Facebook and Twitter tend to provide news faster than most news channels today. Celebrities, sports stars and corporate head honchos are present on these sites so that they can keep in touch with people. They keep their fans and followers informed of latest updates, promote their work and listen to what people have to say.

Lately, many politicians have also taken to social media like a fish to water. The best examples are Arvind Kejriwal and our Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Their updates on Facebook and Twitter keep us informed about latest happenings and future plans.

Pratap Sarnaik, Prashant Thakur and Jitendra Awhad – Young Political Leaders of India

Young Politicians the Key Change To Politics

As said that, for the development of any country, youth plays a very important role. We have being seeing that the youth are nowadays participating in many a streams and with goal to change it. Majority of successful infancy are Indians that have made India proud with their work in their field. Young faces of India are seen in fields of Medical, Science, and Technology and now we are observing these infancy diverting their interest into politics.

young political leaders

Women and the political parties of Maharashtra Elections 2014

Where do the women stand among the politicians of the country, do they have a say in the decision making process or are they deprived their right in this field too?

Maharashtra election 2014

Youth Indian Politicians Plays an Important Role in Politics

Democracy; what do you think this term means? Is it that the country is been run by people above age 60 and elected by half of their age? If this is the case, then are we really satisfied of it? You must ask this question to yourself and try to find the answer. But, if you look at today’s fact figure, you will see that now young Indian politicians are nowadays more active than any other.

young Indian politicians