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Ganesh Naik will be punished at appropriate time, says Joshi

Sacked Maharashtra forest minister Ganesh Naik will be "punished" by Sena chief Bal Thackeray for his anti-party activities at an "appropriate" time, Chief Minister Manohar Joshi has said.

Talking to newsmen after campaigning for the Sena candidate for the Ramtek assembly by-election, Joshi said Naik's rebellion would not go unpunished, and that it was only a question of time. He, however, made it clear that the case of Gulabrao Gawande, who was also dropped from the cabinet, was quite different. He would try to remove his "misunderstanding", he remarked.

Angered by his sacking from the cabinet, Naik floated the Navi Mumbai Vikas Aghadi and defeated the Sena candidate in the mayoral election earlier this month.

Joshi denied that the suggestion that the delay in taking action against Naik was indicative of Thackeray's loosening grip over the organisation.

He said he was not in a position to predict the outcome of the 10 assembly by-elections in the state, but he was sure the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party combine would do much better than what it did in the Lok Sabha poll. He pointed out that out of the 10 assembly seats, for which by-elections were due on June 3, nine were held by the Congress.

Looking at the cracks in the Congress-RPI-Samajwadi Party alliance, the Congress would not be able to retain all the seats, he said.

Replying to a question, Joshi said 10 farmers had committed suicide in the Vidharba region due to crop failure and indebtedness. He also dismissed as baseless, reports in a section of the press that over 50 farmers ended their lives in the region on this count.

He said the government had rendered financial help to the families of the 10 farmers. A package had also been evolved to help the farmers to tide over the crisis, he added.

To a question, he said a central government team was expected to visit the Vidarbha region shortly to assess the crop damage due to unseasonable rains and hail-storms.

Joshi said he did not attach any importance to the Congress's threat to pull down his government through defections. They had been talking about it for long and nobody took them seriously, he remarked. He also firmly ruled out any change in the leadership of the Sena-BJP government.

The chief minister also made fun of leaders from the Congress and other parties for demanding a separate Vidharba state. They did not have any public backing and they were keeping the issue alive for their political survival, he said.

UNI

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