Nashik Diary

For starters, he8217;s taken about 1.5 lakh notebooks 8212; to be given to needy students at subsidised rates 8212; and tried to splash nationalistic fervour all over them. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee8217;s on the cover, on the back cover is Mother India8217; holding the tricolour aloft. And, at the bottom is a photograph of Aher himself.

The caption below the picture makes the intention of the entire exercise clearer: It hails Aher for establishing the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences at Nashik.

More8217;s on the anvil. Dr Aher is to be felicitated in the presence of social worker Anna Hazare for bringing glory to Nashik by building a university. Add free health camps and cultural programmes with a local flavour, and you have the perfect start to yet another heady electionseason.

Community Service

Have power, will cultivate vote bank 8212; is conventional political practice, applied by parties across the spectrum. And it8217;s usually considered the social welfare minister8217;s job to pick out a community for deliverance.

When Babanrao Gholap Shiv Sena was Social Welfare Minister, he established the Akhil Bharatiya Charmakar Sangh, representing the cobbler community.

Anna Dange of the BJP who took over after Gholap8217;s ouster, continued the good work. Dange8217;s Maharashtra Rajya Dhangar Samaj Mahasangh was set up for the benefit of shepherds in 1992 and now has a youth wing 8212; the Malhar Sena 8212; which is organiseing a convention 8220;to focus attention8221; on the community8217;s demands.

These demands include, among other things, a corporation to look after the community8217;s welfare.

Ex-minister Gholap incidentally got into trouble due to his involvement with such corporations, facing charges of fraud which eventually forced him from his post.

Troubleshooter

The newguardian minister for Nashik district, Bala Nandgaonkar, who shot into the limelight when he defeated Chhagan Bhujbal in the 1995 Assembly polls, knows a thing or two about being a town warden 8212; and showing it.

Last week, the Niphad tehsildar issued demolition notices to over 400 stalls in Niphad and Lasalgaon. The infuriated stall owners who took out morchas in both towns and submitted memoranda to the tehsildar, claiming the shops were in existence for the past three to four decades and hence could not be demolished.

The issue was taken up by Nandgaonkar, who reportedly met Chief Minister Narayan Rane and persuaded him to order a stay on the demolition. Nandgaonkar then rushed to Niphad and Lasalgaon the same night to announce that the shops would not be demolished. This was followed by the usual discourse on the Shiv Sena-BJP government8217;s 8220;concern8221; for the jobless and its 8220;efforts to promote self-employment.8221;

After all, weren8217;t the stall owners an illuminating example of motivation andenterprise? he asked.

Nandagaonkar8217;s list of good deeds doesn8217;t stop here. On his way to Nashik for the first time as guardian minister, his convoy came across an accident on the Mumbai-Agra national highway. And, 8220;leading by example8221; forever being the ideal leader8217;s watchword, he got down to help 8212; incidentally in full view of the local press. The deed was recorded for posterity by the newspapers the next day.