Joined Ajit Pawar-led NCP due to Dimbhe-Manikdoh tunnel: Dilip Walse-Patil
Walse-Patil said that while rumour is rife that he joined the NCP (Ajit Pawar) owing to pressure after being served notice by the Enforcement Directorate
After being at the receiving end of harsh comments from Nationalist Congress Party/NCP (SP) supremo, Sharad Pawar, for switching over to the Ajit Pawar-led faction of the NCP, senior NCP (Ajit Pawar) leader and Maharashtra minister Dilip Walse-Patil on Monday revealed that the reason he switched sides is the Dimbhe-Manikdoh tunnel.
Walse-Patil said that while rumour is rife that he joined the NCP (Ajit Pawar) owing to pressure after being served notice by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), neither the ED, income-tax department nor Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had served him notice and his move was purely to save the Ambegaon constituency from becoming drought-prone. “Till my last breath, I won’t allow the water from Ambegaon to be diverted and for the next five years, I will only work for solving the water issues faced by the farmers in this constituency,” Walse-Patil said at a rally on Monday.
“The Dimbhe dam has a capacity of 13 TMC and during the rainy season when the dam is full, the extra four to five TMC of water is blocked by the dam. There is a devious attempt to construct the Dimbhe-Manikdoh tunnel at the base of the dam to divert water to Ahmednagar district. It has been approved by the state and central government during the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government. However, the dam will be empty in three months. Thereafter, where will we (Ambegaon) get water from?” Walse-Patil questioned.
Earlier during a rally on Wednesday in support of NCP (SP) candidate Devdutt Nikam who is running against Walse-Patil from Ambegaon in the November 20 assembly elections, Sharad Pawar for the first time called his one-time protégé (Walse-Patil) a ‘traitor’ and urged people not to vote for him, stressing that there are no family ties between the Pawar and Walse-Patil families.
Walse-Patil on Monday presented various clips featuring NCP (SP) leaders talking about the diversion of water through the tunnel. “I met Sharad Pawar, Jayant Patil, and Rohit Pawar and urged them to scrap the tunnel project but they remained firm in their support of it. I even offered Rohit Pawar the chance to contest from Ambegaon if he was serious about becoming an MLA, emphasising that stepping back is not an issue for me as being an MLA is not my priority. Despite my willingness to make this sacrifice, they still favoured the tunnel,” Walse-Patil said. “At that time itself, Ajit Pawar opposed construction of this tunnel due to which I joined the NCP (Ajit Pawar),” he asserted.
