Marathwada a different kettle of fish

Cotton is the main crop in Marathwada and suicide the preferred way to escape bad agricultural debts. Urban areas which receive drinking water twice a week consider themselves a cut above the rest and most of the rural areas are free of electricity, writes KS Manojkumar.

Cotton is the main crop in Marathwada and suicide the preferred way to escape bad agricultural debts. Urban areas which receive drinking water twice a week consider themselves a cut above the rest and most of the rural areas are free of electricity.

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So whichever way the rest of Maharashtra goes, Marathwada is unlikely to follow suit. The poll issues are different here.

Of the 288 assembly constituencies in the state, Marathwada accounts for 46 seats spread across eight districts — most of which are perennially drought prone, short on natural resources and full of sick industrial units.

But despite all this, the region has given to the state three chief ministers, two deputy CMs, two Union home ministers, one Lok Sabha Speaker and one Pramod Mahajan.

Mahajan, of course, belongs to the BJP which, along with the Shiv Sena, is trying to make inroads here. Apart from him and Gopinath Munde (who was deputy CM in 1995-1999) the rest were all Congressmen — S.B. Chavan, Shivajirao Patil Nilangekar and Vilasrao Deshmukh (CMs), Sunderrao Solanke (deputy CM under V.P. Naik in the Seventies), Chavan and Shivraj Patil as home ministers. Patil was Lok Sabha Speaker too.