Last month, 19-year-old Ashwini Shinde, who lives with her family in a 10X10 feet hut located right opposite former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan’s residence at Patan Colony in Karad, was preparing for he second year B.com exam. Unlike her school days and even the past three years of college life when she was forced to study in the flickering dim-lit of a “diya,” Aswhini does not have to strain her eyes. The newly installed tubelight provides just enough light for her to study without much problem. “All my school life I had to study in darkness. During day time, it was a little better, but in the evenings, it used to really get horrible,” says Ashwini. Since over a fortnight, her life has change drastically. “Our decades of dark days seem to have gone for ever. We all have electricity in our huts. I am happy I will be able to complete my graduation in ‘brighter’ days,” she says. Bhagyashree Patil, a first-year student, says, “A few months back, when I met the CM at his residence and requested him to do something for us, he merely said.ho, ho, ho, ho”. Like Ashwini and Bhagyashree, several students in this slum, located exactly 13 steps from the compound wall of Chavan’s residence and divided by a tattered road, are in an ecstatic mood. At the same time, there are many who use angry words against Chavan for promising but doing nothing to dispel years of darkness from their lives. The most vocal of them is 25-year-old Sharad Kengar, a civil engineer. “In past three years, we met the chief minister several times at his residence and even at Mantralaya. But he had a standard reply: Mee baghto, mee karto.(I will see. I will do it),” Kengar says, adding that they met Chavan even when he was an MP and a Union minister. “But besides promising, Chavan has failed to do nothing. I myself became a civil engineer after studying in the darkness in my hut. Like me, every other student has suffered the same plight,” he says. Vishwal Waghmare (28), a commerce graduate, says, “If he has done nothing for us, why should we vote for him? His family kept us in dark for more than 50 years,” Waghmare says. His view is shared by most of the youngsters who mobbed this correspondent outside their huts on Monday. Yet another youth Deepak Jadhav says,”Over the years, we submitted several memorandums to the CM and also a CD of our plight, but nothing changed. I will certainly not vote for him.” Life changed for the hutment-dwellers over a fortnight back - just before the poll code came into force - after the MSEDCL installed electricity meters outside their huts. The slum-dwellers credit this to Bhagwan Vairat, president of the Zopadpatti Suraksha Dal. “On August 22, we carried out a morcha to local MSEDCL office. We warned them if they don’t provide electricity to the slum-dwellers, we will gherao them or blacken their face. The trick worked. About 15 days, over 40 huts here have got electricity meters,” says Vairat. Vairat blames the plight of slum-dwellers on power politics. “The MSECDL gave lame excuses despite the fact that these slum-dwellers had been living there for as many as 70 years. Even the government norms stipulate that slum-dwellers living at one place before 1995 and 2000 should get all amenities,” he says. What is shocking, says Vairat, is that Chavan family has been at the helm since 1960, yet they did not care for the people who are their neighbours. Dismissing the allegations, Anand Patil, MLA and Chavan’s campaign manager, says, “Actually, this was the job of the Karad Municipal Council. It is not in our control and hence we could do little.” The Vilas Patil-Undalkar camp also blames the politics of the area. “Chavan family has been power for four decades. It has to answer why for years, their neighbours did not electricity,” says Hanumant M, a supporter. MSEDCL officials say the slum-dwellers did not have residential proof, a claim denied by Vairat.
