Dhoot, Danve among 6 MPs miss region's crucial railway meeting

Aurangabad: Shiv Sena’s Rajya Sabha member Rajkumar Dhoot and Jalna MP Raosaheb Danve were among the six MPs who did not attend a crucial railway meet held at Nanded on Wednesday. Notably, these two leaders have not attended similar railway meetings for the last two years.

A total of 11 MPs were invited to the meeting.

Four other MPs who skipped the meet were Bharati Pawar (Dindori) and Sanjay Dhotre (Akola) of BJP, Bhavna Gawali of Sena (Washim) and independent MP Navneet Rana (Amravati). BJP MP from Khandwa, Nandkumar Singh Chouhan, made it to Nanded all the way from Madhya Pradesh.

The MPs who attended the meeting were Aurangabad MIM MP Imtiyaz Jaleel, Sanjay Jadhav of Sena from Parbhani, Pratap Patil Chikhalikar from Nanded and Hemant Patil of Sena from Hingoli.

South Central Railway authorities said the formal invitation for the railway meeting was sent on October 10. “As per the laid down process, we sent a formal communication to the MPs almost a month in advance. Such advance communication is must from our side for different reasons, including logistic arrangements,” a senior official said. The SCR had announced the division-level meeting on September 27, but later postponed it as the model of code of conduct for assembly elections in Maharashtra were declared.

Sanjay Surve, personal secretary of Dhoot, said the Sena MP could not attend the meeting due to inevitable reason. “He (Dhoot) could have easily attended the meeting scheduled earlier but did not make to today’s meeting due to other important commitments,” he said. Surve said Dhoot had submitted a memorandum of demands to the SCR authorities.

Dindori MP Pawar said she could not go to Nanded due to the demise of her uncle. “I had conveyed my absence to SCR authorities,” she said. Danve and other absent MPs could not be reached for comments.

Mangesh Kokate, personal secretary of Navneet Rana, said the MP was busy in visiting the areas that were affected by unseasonal rains. “She had sent one of her representatives to the meeting on behalf of her,” he said.

Held once in a year, the divisional railway meeting involving MPs forms the basis of drafting the different connectivity and infrastructure related demands and sending it to the Railway Board for final approval.

Railway activist Gautam Nahata said absence of more than 50% MPs to the crucial railway meeting sends a wrong signal to the railway top-brass. “Being public representatives, MPs were expected to exert pressure on the authorities to get things done,” he said.