&w=3840&q=100)
Maha govt mute spectator to rising crime, Rs 4,900 cr freebie scam: Sule
Speaking to reporters here, the Baramati MP claimed that a Rs 4,900 crore scam had taken place in the Majhi Ladki Bahin Yogana, the government's flagship scheme that provides a monthly assistance of Rs 1,500 to women.
She said parts of the state, including Pune and Beed districts, have witnessed a steady surge in crimes, while the government remains a mute spectator.
"People have lost faith in the system. There is no fear of the law. Who is backing these criminals? Instead of looking into these questions, the government chooses to stay silent," she said.
Sule criticised the delay in the formation of a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the 2022 murder of Parli-based businessman Mahadev Munde.
"Only after Munde's wife, Dnyaneshwari, attempted self-immolation and met Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, did the government act. We demand a fair and transparent probe by the SIT," she said.
Sule also raised concerns about the recent communal unrest at Yavat in Daund tehsil, where groups of persons, angered by a social media post, vandalised and set ablaze properties.
"This is a sensitive region. Political leaders and outsiders coming in and inciting unrest is unacceptable. I urge the chief minister and deputy chief ministers to control their people," she said.
Sule urged Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, also the guardian minister of Pune, to ensure peace and communal harmony in Daund.
"We have deep roots in Daund. Let's not allow outsiders to disturb its social fabric," she said.
Maharashtra has become an example of how power and money can derail governance, she claimed.
"There is a Rs 4,900-crore scam in the Ladki Bahin scheme. Farmers are committing suicide, and yet the government is focused on self-promotion," she alleged.
Maharashtra Women and Child Development Minister Aditi Tatkare recently admitted that nearly 26.34 lakh ineligible persons, including men, were availing benefits of the Ladki Bahin scheme.
On Fadnavis's recent remarks about rising hooliganism in Pune, Sule said, "If you acknowledge there's a law and order issue, what action have you taken? Who is protecting these contractors and gangsters?" She also flagged irregularities in the Election Commission's handling of voter rolls in Bihar, demanding a detailed discussion in the Parliament on electoral transparency and accountability.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indian Express
9 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Bengal govt rolls out Rs 8,000-cr outreach programme to resolve local issues
TAPAN MONDOL, 31, seated on the front bench in a classroom of Bele-Durganagar High School, Joynagar, in South 24 Parganas, while attending a meeting as part of the TMC government's 'Amader Para, Amader Samadhan' (Our Neighbourhood, Our Solution) initiative, which rolled out from August 2 at the booth level, pointed out, 'We lack drinking water sources, forcing us to travel 2.5 km for water. So, we are proposing at least four tubewells for our Bele-Durganagar area.' During the meeting, a government official on site pointed out, 'One tube well costs around Rs 2 lakh, and we only have Rs 10 lakh fund. Installing four tubewells would exceed our budget.' However, backing Mondol's proposal, another villager, 67-year-old Prafulla Sardar, responded firmly, 'We will handle other issues such as streetlights and poor roads later. Drinking water comes first. So, prioritise the tubewells, then do whatever else you want to.' After the 'success' of its 'Duare Sarkar' and 'Parai Samadhan' campaigns, the West Bengal government on Saturday launched a Rs 8,000-crore outreach programme aimed at resolving local issues such as setting up street lamps, repairing roads and ensuring water supply, across districts, at the level of 'paras' or neighbourhoods. As part of the scheme, a locality (para) is constituted with three booths. On the opening day, each centre had three dedicated rooms where villagers could submit their local demands. These were compiled by a neutral person and handed over to the administration. The proposals would then be reviewed and decisions made on which projects to implement. The administration also arranged a help desk to take individual problems and applications. The move comes ahead of the Assembly elections, which is less than a year away. Organised for Booth 181 of the Joynagar Assembly constituency, the voters of the three booths – 181, 182 and 183 – participated in the project camp. Inaugurating the camp, Sumit Gupta, District Magistrate of South 24 Parganas, said, 'We have supplied the scheme names which will be allowed in this programme. People will put forth their demands in today's meeting. These will be scrutinised and selected projects will be implemented from November. On the first day, we organised 56 camps across the district.' 'In this scheme, one para will be constituted with three booths. But in remote places, we are making para with one or two booths also,' he added. However, a controversy erupted when it surfaced that Bele-Durganagar High School had exams scheduled on Saturday, and the camps began before the exams were completed. The school head master Arijit Sarkar claimed, 'We do not have problems and students also did not face any problems.' Meanwhile, the DM said, 'I do not have any idea that examinations are going on. It is not desirable. We are investigating.' Another camp was organised at Champahati Nilmani Kar Vidyalaya, under the Baruipur-East Assembly constituency, with participants belonging under booth number 24, 25 and 26. Panchayat Development Officer of Baruipur, Sanjib Roy Chowdhury said, 'Many people are coming and expecting that they can submit their problems like OBC certificate, Lakshmir Bhandar application, widow pension like government schemes. We also arranged for them a help desk so that they can submit their demands also.' A local Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader, Manna Naskar, said, 'It is a new programme. But it will be useful for development as ground level general voters are participating in this programme.' 'More than 300 persons participated in the programme. They have given many proposals, mostly roads, drinking water and streetlights,' said another TMC leader and local panchayat pradhan Asit Baran Mondol. Last month, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who announced the initiative, claimed, 'First such initiative in INDIA where people can voice their opinions and mutually decide the issues they need to get it resolved in their booth using Rs 10 lakh.' After its launch on Saturday, Banerjee posted on X, 'Amader Para Amader Samadhan' (APAS) is a unique flagship initiative aimed at institutionalizing participatory governance and re-imagining grassroots service delivery through people-engagement and empowerment. APAS camp is a platform where local people shall deliberate, identify and prioritize their local level infrastructure needs.' 'Rs 8,000+ crore is the outlay for APAS with Rs 10 lakh allocated per booth and 80,000+ polling booths being covered by 27,000+ camps. Today, on the first day of 'Amader Para Amader Samadhan' 632 camps are being held across the State. Duare Sarkar counters have also been set up in APAS Camps.I invite the people to visit their camps and participate in the discussions to make APAS a grand success. I also thank the concerned government officials and stakeholders…,' she added.
The Hindu
9 minutes ago
- The Hindu
Why is northeast on edge about Assam evictions?
The story so far: The Assam government's drive to evict encroachers from forestlands has sent alarm bells ringing in other States of the region. Now, States bordering Assam are taking measures to ensure that those evicted from Assam do not cross over. When did the eviction drive start in Assam? The BJP came to power in 2016 by promising to secure jaati (race), maati (land), and bheti (hearth). Based on a Gauhati High Court order to reclaim encroached forestlands, the first eviction drive was carried out in three fringe villages of eastern Assam's Kaziranga National Park in September 2016. Two people died at Gorukhuti in north-central Assam's Darrang district when the eviction drive resumed in September 2021, five months after the BJP retained power and Himanta Biswa Sarma became Chief Minister. The eviction drives, allegedly targeted at Bengali Muslims, resumed in June 2025, coinciding with charges of corruption against the BJP-led government, one of them involving the purchase and redistribution of Gir cows for an agricultural project at Gorukhuti, from where migrant Muslims were evicted. What are the roots of the problem? Evicting encroachers from forestlands, wetlands, and government revenue lands is not a new phenomenon in Assam. However, the operation has been high on optics as the BJP and its sub-nationalist regional allies have accused the 15-year rule by Congress of having paved the ground for encroachment by the 'Bangladeshi', 'Miya', or 'illegal infiltrators' — pejoratives for Muslims with roots in present-day Bangladesh — for votes. This category of Muslims has long polarised electoral politics in Assam during and after the anti-foreigners Assam Agitation (1979-'85), which led to the signing of an accord prescribing a cut-off date — midnight of March 24, 1971 — for the detection, deletion (from electoral rolls), and deportation of 'illegal immigrants' or Bangladeshi nationals. Why is the drive overtly aggressive? The eviction drives have impacted non-Muslims as well, including 130 families whose houses were bulldozed to clear the Silsako Beel, a major wetland in Guwahati, of encroachment in 2022. Those against migrant Muslims, however, has garnered more attention for their scale and intensity, as it has led to the death of at least five people between 2016 and July 2025, when 1,080 families were evicted from 135 hectares of the Paikan Reserve Forest in Assam's Goalpara district. This aggression is also reflected in the rhetoric of the Chief Minister and other BJP leaders, who refer to the drive as a long-term exercise to save Assam from 'land jihad'. Before the drive was launched this year, the Chief Minister said 15,288.52 bighas of satra (Vaishnav monastery) lands remain illegally occupied by people of doubtful citizenship across 29 districts. He also referred to the Union Environment Ministry's report to the National Green Tribunal that 3,620.9 square kilometres of forest area in Assam were under encroachment as of March 2024. The Chief Minister vowed to continue the eviction drive until Assam is encroachment-free in 'at least 10 years', while clarifying that tribal people living in forest areas from before 2005 and covered by the Forest Rights Act would not be touched. This followed the fast-track resettlement of at least 12 Ahom families who were evicted along with migrant Muslims from village grazing reserves across four locations in northeastern Assam's Lakhimpur district. Why are Assam's neighbours jittery? Assam's neighbours were passive as long as the eviction drives were in areas far from the interstate borders. NGOs in Nagaland stirred into action after the Assam government announced an anti-encroachment drive in Golaghat district's Uriamghat. They saw it as a move to push 'illegal Bangladeshi immigrants' inside Nagaland under the agenda of usurping 'ancestral Naga lands'. Before the drive commenced, the police in Nagaland's Niuland district intercepted and turned 200 vehicles carrying 'illegal migrants' back to Assam. A few days later, a conglomerate of extremist groups announced a task force to guard the Assam-Nagaland border against infiltrators. The governments of Manipur, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, and Mizoram followed suit. They issued orders to the authorities in areas bordering Assam to increase vigilance, prevent the evicted people from coming in, and make the issuance of the inner-line permit, a temporary travel document, stricter. How are border disputes linked to eviction? Although opposition political parties in Assam see the eviction drive against Bengali-speaking Muslims as a part of the BJP's agenda of polarisation ahead of the 2026 Assembly polls, encroachment is at the core of the State's boundary disputes with Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Nagaland. These States were carved out of Assam between 1963 and 1972. In March 2025, the Assam Assembly was told that the four States have been occupying almost 83,000 hectares of land belonging to the State. These States have, off and on, driven migrant Muslims out to Assam, a State they accuse of having patronised 'illegal immigrants' and made them settle along the borders as a ploy to claim disputed lands. More than 350 people have died due to the inter-State disputes, which Assam has partially resolved with Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya. On July 30, the Gauhati High Court directed these five States to constitute a high-level committee to facilitate a coordinated action to clear illegal settlements from forestlands.
India Today
9 minutes ago
- India Today
Delhi woman, boyfriend arrested for husband's murder as police crack year-old case
Delhi Police have arrested a woman and her boyfriend for allegedly planning and carrying out the murder of her husband and disposing of his body in a drain in Haryana's Sonipat, an official said on arrested persons have been identified as 34-year-old Soniya, a resident of Alipur in Delhi, and her 28-year-old boyfriend Rohit from Sonipat. Another accused in the case, Vijay, is to police, the motive behind the murder was the ongoing relationship between Soniya and Rohit, along with the alleged abusive and criminal behaviour of the victim. Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Harsh Indora said the victim, 42-year-old Pritam Prakash, had more than 10 criminal cases against him and had been declared a proclaimed offender by a Commissioner of Police (Crime) Harsh Indora said, "The victim, Pritam Prakash (42), was a known history-sheeter in Alipur. He had more than 10 cases registered against him, including those under the Arms Act, Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, and under various sections of the Indian Penal Code. He had also been declared a proclaimed offender by the court."On July 5, 2024, Pritam had gone to pick up Soniya from her sister's house in Gannaur, Sonipat. After an argument, Pritam left the house but later returned and pleaded with her, Soniya let him stay in the house. That day, Soniya allegedly offered Rs 50,000 to Vijay, her sister's brother-in-law, to kill that night, while Soniya was sleeping on the terrace, Vijay allegedly killed Pritam and disposed of his body in a drain near Agwanpur. Police said Vijay recorded a video of the body and sent it to Soniya via social media, but the video was later July 20, Soniya filed a missing person complaint at Alipur Police Station, claiming her husband had gone out and never case initially did not show any signs of foul play, but investigators grew suspicious after noticing no financial or digital activity from Pritam for later tracked a mobile number linked to Pritam that had become active again after nearly a year. Surveillance led them to Rohit in questioning, Rohit at first misled the police but later admitted to the said Rohit confessed to being in a relationship with Soniya and said they had planned the murder together. He also said Soniya had allegedly paid Vijay to carry out the the same time, Haryana Police had recovered an unidentified male body from the area, but were unable to identify it. The case remained unsolved until Delhi Police linked the details nearly a year to police, Soniya later sold Pritam's auto-rickshaw for Rs 4.5 lakh and gave his mobile phone to Rohit. DNA samples collected during the Haryana post-mortem will now be used to confirm the identity of the said Soniya married Pritam when she was around 15 years old, against the wishes of their families. They later accepted the marriage, and the couple had three children, including a 16-year-old son and two daughters."The marriage was never reported to the police by the families, who later accepted the couple. They have three children from the wedlock, including a 16-year-old boy and two daughters," the DCP according to police, had four previous criminal cases, including charges of murder and possession of illegal arms. He got married in April 2025 but continued his relationship with Soniya. He was working as a private cab are continuing their search for Vijay, who remains missing.- EndsMust Watch
