Sukanya Shantha 
Chandrapur: As the agitation demanding reservation for the Maratha community intensified in Maharashtra, senior Congress leader and leader of opposition, Vijay Wadettiwar, was among the first to express his concern.
In a letter to chief minister Eknath Shinde, Wadettiwar sought the state’s immediate intervention to avoid further corrosion of relations between the Other Backward Castes (OBC) and Maratha communities.
On the eve of the state assembly elections, Wadettiwar spoke to The Wire about various issues.
He said that in order to make the Ladli Bahin Yojana work, the Mahayuti government had destroyed many successful schemes in the state. He also discussed the internal challenges faced by the Mahavikas Aghadi (MVA) and why the party decided to field more candidates from the OBC Kunbi community in the Vidarbha region.
Do you see a stronger opponent in the Mahayuti this time?
Vijay Wadettiwar: All three parties in the (Maha) Yuti appeared united in the parliamentary elections. It is no longer the same. We have been closely tracking their actions. You can see that these parties work only for their own interests. They are even openly supporting rebel candidates, even when it damages the alliance’s legitimate candidates.
They have lost their way and are desperately resorting to communal politics, even after being shown their place by the voters of this state in the general elections. They don’t seem to have learned the lesson that the state can’t be run based on instructions from people sitting in Gujarat.
Let me explain the situation with an analogy: In a marriage, work is distributed among family members according to their capabilities and trust. [Devendra] Fadnavis has the most important responsibility of distributing laddoos (sweets). Eknath Shinde only got to handle the remaining crumbs. But the worst of all is Ajit Pawar, who was handed just a water jar and was asked to distribute water.
If that is the case, how are you making the best of the situation?
In Maharashtra, it is a fight of ideologies. Yeh Samvidhan parivar versus Sangh parivar ki ladai hai (This is a battle between the Constitution family and the RSS family). We are clear that we want to keep this state in line with the Constitution of India and not let the RSS take over.
Farmers across Marathwada, North Maharashtra and Vidarbha are distressed. Their condition is worrying for all of us right now. Cotton and soybean farmers are all seeking adequate prices for their produce, but they are barely getting even Rs 4000 per quintal. They are incurring losses. And this government has no clear plan to rescue them from this crisis.
They have been obsessively invoking the Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojna. Besides that one scheme, they have nothing to talk about. All our important investments have been snatched away by Gujarat. You ask them, and they have no answer for that.
Just look at the way the government is run. There are three parties, but a single person [Fadnavis] wants to hold on to all the plump portfolios. It’s not that he is the most efficient. Law and order have completely collapsed in the state and Fadnavis is solely to blame for that as the home minister.
All that you are saying could be true, but the ground perception still seems to be in support of the Mahayuti. At least, the election schemes that the government launched have surely become a talking point in this election.
Like I said, it’s just the Ladki Bahin Yojna. They not only launched the scheme but also deposited money into the accounts of women in advance. This is nothing but a bribe. But while this one scheme appears to be working, what about the other schemes that existed earlier? Just check what is happening to the Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Yojna. For over five months, the government has stopped giving out money. So, they have launched a new politically motivated scheme by killing another fully functional one. Even work under the MGNREGA scheme is not being allotted.
How is the Mahavikas Aghadi countering the government?
We have stayed focused on the issue of inflation. Inflation is slowly killing everyone. It’s not just the poor; even the middle class is under severe distress now. Every essential commodity, from cooking oil to electricity, is more expensive than ever.
We have been raising this issue pointedly, making people realize that free schemes can’t rescue them. They need a government that is capable of helping them overcome this crisis and bring some stability in the future.
You spoke of issues within the Mahayuti, but similar problems have been reported within the MVA too – be it seat-sharing or campaigning for candidates from alliance parties.
The alliances we see today are not traditional ones. They were born out of necessity. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) broke these parties and snatched away leaders. A powerful party like the BJP, which is controlled by their master Amit Shah, is itself in shambles. We have overcome most of our differences. Barring a seat or two, things have mostly been resolved. If I were to give an example, there are some issues in Solapur [Congress MP Praniti Shinde is drawing flak for snatching NCP (Sharad Pawar) candidate Bhagirath Bhalke and making him contest on the Congress symbol]. But that is all.
The Congress took a strong stand against rebelling candidates and has suspended as many as 18 from the party for six years. But in Vidarbha, there are over 28 who have rebelled from different parties within the MVA. How serious is the issue?
No, no. Most of them are simply nobody. Barring five or six candidates, the others are absolutely inconsequential. There is also a pattern here. Most of these rebelling individuals are the ones who joined the parties after the Lok Sabha elections. So, it was not really surprising for us. They joined the party with the hope of getting a ticket, but when they didn’t get one, they left. They don’t really have any base in the party. We might face some problems in the Armori constituency in Gadchiroli district (where two-time Congress MLA Anandrao Gedam is contesting as an independent candidate), but that is all.
In Vidarbha, there is a direct fight between the Congress and BJP in almost 40 out of the 62 seats. How challenging is the situation this time?
Whenever the Congress and BJP have had a direct fight in this region, it is the Congress that has had the edge. We saw that in the parliamentary elections too. This region has the maximum number of voters from marginalized Dalit and Adivasi communities. There is a lot of distrust and inbuilt anger against parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) or the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), which they had once considered their own. The Muslims have also always considered the Congress as their trusted party. So, at this moment, there is nothing to disturb our vote base in this region.
Since you mentioned the “Muslim votes,” let me ask you why the Congress party, which has enjoyed the support of the community all along, has not considered the community worthy enough for candidature. Both in the parliamentary and assembly elections, there were hardly any candidates from the Muslim community in the MVA. Don’t you think MVA’s commitment to the Muslim community is lacking?
Let me speak for the Congress. We are contesting on a little over 100 seats, and among those, we have fielded nine candidates from the Muslim community. We have given candidacies to Muslims in all regions. You have Muslim candidates in Mumbai, Thane, Konkan, Malegaon and Amravati. So, we have covered our grounds and fielded candidates across all regions.
Last year, you wrote a letter to the chief minister expressing your concern over the growing discontent between the OBC and Maratha communities. In this letter, you sought an immediate solution and urged the government to have a dialogue with Maratha leader Manoj Jarange Patil.
Patil has suddenly taken a backseat now. He had expressed his desire to contest elections but decided not to participate in electoral politics at the last minute. How do you read these sudden changes?
Jarange Patil is a smart man. He knew that if he contested elections, his movement would have come to a standstill. Whoever is advising him seems to have done a good job. If Patil had contested this election, the gulf between the Maratha and OBC communities would have only grown. Fortunately, the differences have somewhat settled now. In Marathwada, the situation had gotten so bad that the OBCs and Marathas were refusing to even have day-to-day transactional relations. Patil’s decision to not contest has put a break on the everyday conflicts between the communities.
Was Patil being propped up by someone? Was he working on someone’s directions? What were the intentions? I am asking you this, especially because you are a tall leader from the OBC community, particularly someone from a micro-OBC community.
You are asking a controversial question. Making a statement on this would unnecessarily rake up an issue. But one thing is clear: this government has succeeded in causing a rift between the OBC and Maratha communities. This is a government-sponsored conflict between two communities.
I don’t want to get into the details of these issues now. We know the OBC community is under severe distress. We don’t have data to show how many of us exist. We have a simple demand: Count us. Let a caste census happen.
Fielding candidates from a single Jat community was seen among the primary reasons for Congress’s loss in Haryana. The party doesn’t seem to have learned a lesson from this mistakes. In Vidarbha, most of your candidates are from the numerically and politically dominant Kunbi community. Why did this happen?
Well, this could be a matter of concern. Even Rahul ji (Gandhi) raised this issue in one of our internal meetings. But we have looked at the merit of our candidates in this region. The candidates who have worked in their constituencies and have some prominence have been chosen.
But then look at the BJP. They have fielded candidates from smaller OBC communities.
No, that is not the case. They too have many candidates from the Kunbi community. In fact, the candidate against me in Chandrapur’s Brahmapuri constituency belongs to the Kunbi community. They have several candidates from the Kunbi caste group. That is the social reality of this region.