Mumbai, Oct 1 — A major political controversy erupted in Maharashtra following the MahaYuti government's announcement last week classifying 265 talukas as drought-affected.
The list has triggered sharp resentment among ruling coalition leaders whose constituencies were omitted, while the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) has accused the state government of "political favoritism."
This fresh dispute has surfaced within four months of the Fadnavis government announcing the Punyashlok Ahilyadevi Holkar Farmer Loan Waiver.
Raising serious questions about the transparency of the evaluation metrics, the drought-declared list includes high-rainfall regions such as Mahabaleshwar, Radhanagari, and Shrivardhan.
Out of 358 talukas across 36 districts, only 265 have been included. The drought list covers talukas corresponding to the Assembly constituencies of 28 ministers in the MahaYuti government.
Notable among them are Deputy Chief Minister Sunetra Pawar (Baramati), Revenue Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule (Kamthi), Chhagan Bhujbal (Yeola), Girish Mahajan (Jamner), Gulabrao Patil (Jalgaon Rural), Dadaji Bhuse (Malegaon Outer), Sanjay Rathod (Digras), Uday Samant (Ratnagiri), Pankaja Munde (Parli), Dattatray Bharane (Indapur), Aditi Tatkare (Shrivardhan), Makarand Jadhav-Patil (Wai-Mahabaleshwar) and Prakash Abitkar (Radhanagari).
Other key constituencies featured in the notification include Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis (Nagpur South-West), Sanjay Shirsat (Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar), Nitesh Rane (Kankavli), Akash Fundkar (Khamgaon), Babasaheb Patil (Ahmadpur), Indranil Naik (Pusad), and Meghna Sakore-Bordikar (Jintur).
Conversely, the exclusion of several talukas represented by prominent ministers has raised questions about whether the selection was based solely on objective parameters or whether political considerations also played a role.
Among the excluded areas are Shinde Sena minister Shambhuraj Desai’s Patan, Hasan Mushrif’s Kagal, Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil’s Shirdi, Narhari Zirwal’s Dindori, Yogesh Kadam’s Dapoli and Bharat Gogawale’s Mahad.
The ruling coalition is facing growing pressure from its own cadre over the exclusion of several talukas from the list. An audio clip purportedly featuring Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Ashok Chavan has also gone viral on social media.
In the clip, he is heard advising disgruntled party workers to temporarily endure public criticism after they questioned why their taluka had been left out of the list.
In another instance, BJP MLA Sumit Wankhede submitted a letter to the Chief Minister requesting the inclusion of his Arvi constituency.
After Fadnavis immediately acceded to the demand, Wankhede removed his public post containing the letter from social media.
The MVA launched a fierce attack on the state government over the drought notification.
Senior Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar slammed the administration, stating, "The government should be ashamed of playing politics over a sensitive issue like drought. While farmers across Maharashtra are battling severe distress, this shameless MahaYuti government is engaging in discriminatory politics."
Wadettiwar alleged that his own severely affected constituency of Brahmapuri was deliberately excluded and questioned why no minister visited opposition-held areas.
"Are opposition constituencies not part of Maharashtra?" he asked.
Concurrently, senior Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) chief Sharad Pawar wrote to Fadnavis demanding financial assistance of Rs 1 lakh per hectare for affected farmers.
Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MLA Aaditya Thackeray also questioned the government's handling of the crisis, pointing to worsening drinking water shortages and rising farmer suicides.
The severe drought condition is expected to hit the broader state economy beyond agriculture.
Officials from the Relief and Rehabilitation Department warned that significant losses in the 2026 Kharif season could severely cripple the rural economy.
"Farmers are the backbone of the rural economy. With their purchasing power exhausted due to crop failure, the overall economy will face a direct ripple effect," a senior official noted.
The situation has also renewed scrutiny over state water conservation projects, particularly the CM's flagship Jalyukt Shivar initiative, which focused on widening and deepening riverbeds and streams.
Amid mounting criticism, Fadnavis offered assurances that areas omitted from the official notification would not be deprived of government aid.
(Sanjay Jog can be contacted at sanjay.j@ians.in)