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How water is shaping the hustings in Maharashtra -Radheshyam Jadhav

-The Hindu Business Line

With people too busy collecting it, attendance at poll meetings is thin

It’s the schedule of water tankers, and not the time and availability of political bigwigs and national leaders, that is determining the timing of election meetings and rallies in Maharashtra’s drought-affected regions.

With the drought intensifying and paucity of water rising, over 3,117 water tankers, as against just 391 in March 2018, are plying in 8,000 villages and hamlets.

With people, especially rural women, running after water, politicians have been finding it hard to build attendance at election rallies. Local leaders are now busy planning election campaigns based on the water tanker time table. Indeed, many are using their political influence to persuade district administrations to increase the number of tankers in their localities.

Twenty-six of Maharashtra’s 36 districts (72 per cent) are reeling from water scarcity and crop failures over 85.76 lakh hectares. The drought has directly impacted over 82 lakh farmers in the State. The situation is worsening in the Marathwada region, where over 30 lakh people are completely dependent on tanker water with just 4 per cent capacity available available in dams in the region.

Per government data, 1,796 tankers are currently plying in the Marathwada region. In Khamaswadi village in the drought-hit Osmanabad taluka, women have insisted that local politicians must first make arrangements for water and only then talk about politics. “Women have to walk 2-3 km to get a pot of water. As elections and drought have come together, politicians are facing the heat. Some of them are arranging tankers on their own, so that villagers listen to them” says Sunanda Kharate from Osmanabad.

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