Mumbai, Nov 29 (IANS) Shiv Sena (UBT) on Saturday accused the MahaYuti government led by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis of making grand claims about infrastructure while ignoring the collapsing healthcare and basic facilities in remote tribal regions.

In its editorial, Saamana, the Shiv Sena (UBT) said the government’s talk of development amounted to nothing more than “empty words” and “colourful balloons” when people living barely a few hours from Mumbai continue to suffer due to poor roads, inadequate health services, and unreliable ambulance systems.

The Thackeray camp urged the Chief Minister to prioritize the basic needs of the poor and remote tribal populations — namely decent roads, health facilities, and reliable ambulance services — before focusing on ambitious projects like the Metro network, highways, and tunnel roads.

The sharp criticism followed the incident in Mokhada in tribal dominated Palghar district, where an ambulance driver dropped off a tribal woman and her newborn baby halfway home after delivery, forcing them and her relatives to walk two km.

According to the editorial, this event, which came to light only because a citizen posted it on social media, exposed the gap between the government’s “vision of development” and the ground reality. It said that despite seven decades of independence, areas like Wada-Mokhada and other tribal parts of the state lack the basic necessities.

“There are no proper roads or adequate transportation facilities (daldalvanachi soy). Even if a Primary Health Center (PHC) exists, it often lacks doctors, staff, or medicines. Due to a lack of roads, pregnant women and sick people have to be carried in slings (zoli) or palanquins (doli) to the nearest town for treatment, which frequently leads to deliveries or deaths during the journey. Even when ambulances are available, they are often useless due to a lack of roads or a lack of drivers,” said the editorial.

“In Mumbai, which the Chief Minister talks about transforming, Mokhada is just a stone’s throw away. If the ambulance driver had been so callously negligent with a laboring tribal woman, what use is your development vision and your transformation?” asked Thackeray camp.

“The MahaYuti partners talk big about development. They boast about building so many lakh km of roads and so many bridges. They float colorful balloons in the air, detailing how they created a network of roads, how they sped up transportation by expanding highways, how they wove the metro rail network, and how they built large hospitals. The incident in Mokhada revealed how baseless these talks and balloons are,” claimed Uddhav Thackeray led Shiv Sena.

The editorial serves as a reminder that while metro networks and expressways may define modern development, the true measure of governance lies in reaching the most marginalised communities with essential services like healthcare, roads, and emergency response systems.

–IANS

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