Flooding in Pune: Congress, AAP target Ajit Pawar, call his planning negligent

Indian Express

26-05-2025

As parts of Pune city and district including the Pawar family stronghold of Baramati, Daund and Indapur witnessed severe flooding, the Maharashtra Congress targeted Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, claiming he had been negligent in ensuring a proper plan was put in place. The Aam Aadmi Party also alleged that Ajit Pawar has been busy giving media bytes but has come a cropper on the planning front.
'Ajit Pawar has been the deputy chief minister and district guardian minister of Pune for years. Despite this, Pune city and district has suffered from severe flooding. This only shows that no proper planning has been put in place. Ajit Pawar has been negligent on this count. All this is due to the nexus with the builder lobby,' said Congress leader Nana Patole who is the former MPCC president.
Patole said Ajit Pawar has nothing to do with the people. 'And that is exactly the reason the entire state is suffering today. There is flooding and sewage all over the state. On one hand, Maharashtra is suffering the flood nightmare and on the other hand the rulers are preparing to welcome Home Minister Amit Shah in Nanded,' he said.
AAP State spokesperson Mukund Kirdat said,'The severe flooding in at least three talukas and even in parts of Pune shows that the administration was not prepared to handle the situation. A canal was burst, several houses were submerged, highways were flooded and traffic took a massive hit in the last two days. Everything went haywire just as the monsoon neared. This has clearly exposed that Mahayuti government and Ajit Pawar had not taken strong steps to anticipate such a situation. Ajit Pawar is found most of the time giving bytes to the media and playing to the gallery.'
Kirdat said the current situation has shown that there was a pressing need to consider climate change. 'The warning was always there. We have been witnessing climate change for the past few years. It seems the administration and the government have not given thought about climate change while planning,' he said.
MPCC chief Harshavardhan Sapkal said that with the very first heavy rain of the season, corruption in the state government and the Mumbai civic body was exposed as Mumbai's streets turned into drains. He also said the rain exposed the way things were planned in other parts of the state, including in Baramati, Daund and Indapur talukas.
'Roads and railway tracks were flooded, and office-goers in Mumbai faced immense hardships. The BMC spends crores of rupees annually on pre-monsoon works and drain-cleaning, yet every year tells the same story. It is because contractors and those in power are looting public money and lining their own pockets that Mumbaikars are suffering,' alleged Sapkal.
Sapkal said, be it Mumbai or other parts of the state, 'In a place like Baramati where the Pawar's have ruled, a canal burst. In neighbouring Daund, several houses were submerged, and highways went out of bounds…It has exposed the functioning of the Mahayuti government. One bout of rain has exposed the corrupt governance of the BJP, Shinde Sena, and Ajit Pawar's alliance. Their 'efficiency' is such that they might need boats to go door-to-door asking for votes in the upcoming elections. Every year, the BMC spends crores on pre-monsoon work, yet the question arises: Where does the money really go? These conditions are the result of a corrupt alliance between Mantralaya, BMC administration and contractors…The situation elsewhere in the state is no different,' he said.
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
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