Dashed hopes and distrust swirl around Beed’s wind farms

Last week’s resignation of Dhananjay Munde after the arrest of his close aide Walmik Karad has laid bare a sordid tale of extortion and murder.

Don Quixote famously mistook them for enemies, and from a high vantage point the windmills that dot the fields in the villages of Patoda, Kej and Ashta in central Maharashtra do resemble giant sentries on guard. But if Quixote was tilting at imaginary enemies, windmill farms across the region of Beed have, in real life, turned into deadly battlegrounds.

In drought-prone Beed, windmills promised money and jobs. But relations between residents and firms soon soured. (HT Photo)

Last week’s resignation of Dhananjay Munde, the Maharashtra minister for food and civil supplies, after the arrest of his close aide