Mumbai: After being pushed by public representatives, the state government, which has already declared drought in 74% of the state, is considering adding another 19 talukas to the list after a survey on 20% of five major crops in the taluka to assess losses. The list mainly includes constituencies to which ruling party MLAs belong.
So far, drought has been declared in 265 of 358 talukas in the state. The list includes three talukas in Nanded , the constituency of former chief minister and BJP politician Ashok Chavan; three talukas in Chandrapur, the turf of BJP MLAs Kishor Jorgewar and Sudhir Mungantiwar; one taluka in Wardha, from where BJP politician and minister of state for home Pankaj Bhoyar hails. Also part of the list are four talukas in Gondia, from where BJP MLAs Vinod Agarwal and Sanjay Hanmantrao Puram hail. The list includes Patan in Satara, the constituency of Shiv Sena MLA and cabinet minister Shambjuraj Desai. It includes two talukas in Bhandara, from where Shiv Sena MLA Narendra Bhondekar hails. Three talukas from Nashik, from where NCP minister Chhagan Bhujbal hails, are on the list. The constituencies include Chandwad (BJP MLA Daulatrao Aher), Trimbakeshwar (NCP MLA Hiraman Khoskar) and Niphad (NCP MLA Dilip Bankar). At the first cabinet meeting after the declaration, several ministers, including Bhujbal, Shambhuraj Desai and Girish Mahajan had spoken out about other areas which needed to be included in the declaration.