Mumbai: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government faced an embarrassment in the Assembly on the opening day of the budget session when the Opposition boycotted Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao’s joint address to the legislature as they could not listen to its Marathi translation.
“It is for the first time in the history of Maharashtra that the government has failed to provide Marathi translation. This comes just a day ahead of ‘Marathi Language Day.’ The government has failed 12 crore residents of the State,” said Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar.
Technical glitch
As the Governor started his address in English, the members put on their headphones but could not listen to the Marathi translation due to a technical glitch.
Opposition members were seen complaining they were unable to hear the Marathi translation.
This prompted Education Minister Vinod Tawde to rush to the control room and translate the speech, being transmitted through headphones. The Opposition however boycotted the speech, alleging humiliation of Marathi language by the BJP-Shiv Sena government. The incidence occurs a day before the official ‘Marathi Bhasha divas’ (Marathi language day) to be celebrated on Tuesday by the State government to mark the birth anniversary of renowned Marathi poet late V.V. Shirwadkar alias Kusumagraj.
Mr. Tawde said thatDoordarshan anchor Shripad Kelkar who was to translate the speech was taken to the Assembly control room on the first floor, instead of the conference hall on the fourth floor.
Till last year, famous Marathi anchor Pradeep Bhide used to do the translation. “He was not available this year since he was ill,” said Mr. Tawde.
Waiting for long
Mr. Tawde said, “An officer took him to the Assembly hall and kept him waiting there till 11.30 a.m.”. Mr. Kelkar realised something was amiss and again approached the fourth floor, by which time Mr. Tawde was already translating the speech.
Leader of Opposition in Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil raised the issue inside the House demanding strict action against officers who failed in their duty. “This is unprecedented and cannot be taken lightly. The government must take strict action against those who are responsible,” said Mr. Vikhe-Patil.
He also alleged double standards by the government towards Marathi. “On the one hand the government claims it will ensure ‘classical language’ status to Marathi, on the other it can’t even provide a translator. This is most unfortunate,” he added. Leader of Opposition in council, Dhananjay Munde claimed that instead of Marathi, the government provided translation in Gujarati. However, Mr. Tawde said this was preposterous. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis accepted the mistake and said, “It is an absolutely serious issue. The inquiry will be conducted by today (Monday) evening. I wholeheartedly apologise on behalf of the government and want to assure that such a thing will not be repeated,” said Mr. Fadnavis.
Earlier, Mr. Rao recounted the state government’s achievements in his speech. “My Government has a vision to catapult Maharashtra into a one trillion dollar economy by 2025. This will be achieved by increasing growth in sectors like agriculture, textiles, tourism, start-ups and investing in Industry with requisite skill development support. For this purpose policies relating to industries such as defence, agro and food processing, textiles, aerospace, logistics, fin-tech, animation, robotics, artificial intelligence have been launched,” he said.
He reiterated all the government schemes and cabinet decision taken in last one year. Claiming that the present state government inherited ‘a crisis laden agriculture sector,’ Mr Rao said, “From a negative growth rate of minus 0.5 per cent in 2012-13 and minus 11.2 per cent in 2014-15, the growth rate increased to 12.5 per cent in 2016-17. This momentum will be sustained in 2017-18. This growth was achieved by making heavy investments in the agriculture sector. From Rs. 29,000 crore of investment in year 2013-2014, it grew by 280 per cent to Rs. 83,000 crore in 2017-2018.”
