Maharashtra: Salt pans to convents, the long arm of the Adani Group

Mumbai’s salt pans — 256 acres of them — have been handed over to the Adani Group, ostensibly to ‘resettle’ those original Dharavi residents found ineligible for housing under the Dharavi ‘redevelopment’ scheme.

The cabinet’s approval ahead of the assembly elections in Maharashtra — due anytime “after Diwali and before 26 November”, as per the chief election commissioner — has sparked a storm of outrage. The decision followed mere days after the Mahayuti government awarded the Adani Group the contract for supplying 6,600 MW of power at inflated rates.

The opposition and environmentalists have long been emphasising that salt pans, along with the mangroves, play a crucial role in maintaining the fragile and overburdened ecosystem of the urban conglomerate that is Mumbai. Acting like a natural sponge, the low-lying salt pan areas help check flooding during the monsoons, especially when excessive rain coincides with high tide. "A blanket permission to build upon these lands is not just reckless, it’s criminal!" city Congress leader Varsha Gaikwad posted on X.

Incensed Marathas say the BJP knows it is done in Maharashtra. So, this is pretty much a ‘loot the royal treasury and then scorch the earth’ policy to sabotage future governments. The timing of the latest approval, disregarding all concerns and objections, could damage the Mahayuti’s prospects.

The Adani Group was awarded 283.4 acres of salt pan land in Kanjurmarg, Bhandup and Wadala in February this year, all adding up to over 1,500 acres from various pockets of government, railway and dairy board land. ‘Selling out Mumbai!’ cries the opposition.

The Adani Group’s long arm has also just taken over a co-ed school in the Chandrapur district. Run by Carmelite nuns since 1972, Mount Carmel Convent was owned by ACC (Associated Cement Company), which the Adani Group acquired in 2022 from Switzerland-based Holcim.

“We moved out of the school in September after handing it over to the Adani Group,” said the school’s former principal Sister Leena to the Union of Catholic Asian News. “We did not want to work under the Adani Group, which has commercial interests as their priority…their policy and our policy are totally different, so we have moved out,” she added.

Bishop Ephrem Nariculam of Chanda, who oversaw the school, told UCA News that the nuns “decided to leave because of some interference in the management from the Adani Group”.

The group argued that by virtue of having taken over ACC and its assets, the school is now ‘naturally’ theirs.

The son also rises

The Yuva Sena has given a fillip to the Shiv Sena (UBT) just before the assembly election by winning all 10 seats in the Mumbai University senate from the graduates’ constituency. The success was sweet also because it somewhat dispelled the perception that the youth in Maharashtra were drifting away from it.

What was politically even more significant was the fact that the senate win came at the expense of the RSS’ student wing, ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad). It also boosted Aaditya Thackeray’s position as a credible and articulate leader in his own right.

Uddhav Thackeray has been fighting an existential battle to establish that his party is the ‘real’ Shiv Sena and not the breakaway Eknath Shinde faction officially recognised by the election commission.

This was the first senate election after the split, and polling took place not only in Mumbai but also in Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Thane, Palghar and Raigarh. The election was due in 2023, but the university had been stalling on some pretext or the other, and was held this September only after the Bombay High Court intervened.

The Mumbai University senate election differs from the students’ union elections in Delhi University and JNU. With representation from students, teachers, principals and college managing bodies, the senate not only approves the university budget but is also the arbiter of academic and administrative decisions.

While an elated Aaditya Thackeray saw the senate victory as a sign of things to come, critics remained unimpressed, saying it reflects the decision of only about 7,000 out of 13,000 eligible voters.

Thackeray Jr. had come in for sharp criticism when he was made cabinet minister for environment and climate change in the MVA government. He was dragged into several controversies and attempts were made to implicate him in the suicide of actor Sushant Singh Rajput and his manager Disha Salian.

Elected from the Worli assembly constituency, his mixed report card was a cause for concern. However, his recent appearances at several conclaves in Mumbai reveal a mature and polished public speaker in both English and Hindi, with a fairly impressive grasp of issues and sound marshalling of facts.

Will the ‘paid holiday’ gambit pay off?

Polling day in Maharashtra will be a ‘paid holiday’ for daily wage earners and others in the informal sector, said chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar in Mumbai.

Pointing out that Colaba in South Mumbai, Pune Cantonment, Kurla and Kalyan recorded the poorest voter turnout — between 40 and 43 per cent — the CEC announced that the ‘paid holiday’ would encourage more people from the unorganised sector to come out and vote.

It is still not clear whether he was being serious. If this announcement persuades employers, households and contractors to allow paid holidays to casual workers and daily labourers, it will be the first of its kind — an ‘experiment’ compared to political parties paying people to vote.