Senior NCP Leader And Former Deputy CM Of Maharashtra RR Patil Dies At 57

Senior NCP leader and former Deputy CM of Maharashtra RR Patil died today in Mumbai's Lilavati hospital. Patil, 57, was being treated for cancer. The six times MLA from Tasgaon, Sangli has left his mother, wife, and two daughters behind.

One of the longest serving Home Ministers of the state, Mr Patil was also one of the most popular and powerful leaders of the Congress-led alliance that ruled the Maharashtra until last year. 

One NCP source has told the media that his last rites will be carried out tomorrow in his ancestral village of Anjani at 1 PM. 

Patil was very close to NCP chief Sharad Pawar, and was seen as leader who had a mass appeal in Maharashtra state.

He first became an MLA in 1990, and after that he never looked back. Patil was made the Rural Development minister of the state in 1999 in the Congress-NCP government.  He was handed over the Home Ministry in 2003 after Deputy CM Chagan Bhujbal, who also held the Home portfolio with him, resigned following the allegations of his involvement in the infamous Telgi scam. Patil became the Deputy CM in 2004.

Though he had to step down from the post of Home Minister because of his controversial remark - Small incidents do happen in big cities- over the 26/11 terror attacks on Mumbai; he was once again made the Home Minister of the state in 2009 after the alliance won the assembly elections.   

Popularly known as 'Aaba', Patil took the controversial decision to ban dance bars in Mumbai as the Home Minister; the decision was struck down by the Supreme Court afterwards.

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Devendra Fadnavis, the CM of Maharashtra has given his assent to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) for setting up a probe into the irrigation scam, which could land NCP leaders Ajit Pawar and  Sunil Tatkare into trouble.

Former Deputy CM of the state, Mr Pawar, refuses to be affected by any such decision.

Ajit Pawar was the Water Resources Minister between 1999 and 2009, and it was in the year 2009 that he cleared 38 projects worth 20000 crores without seeking clearance of Governing Council of Vidarbha Irrigation Development Corporation (VIDC). Despite huge expenditure, it appeared that there was no significant rise in irrigated land in the state.

An SIT, headed by water resources expert Madhav Chitale submitted a report on the issue earlier this year to the then CM Prithviraj Chavan. The report clearly points a finger to misappropriate usages of taxpayer’s money.

It is shocking that right after that scam surfaced, a white paper was tabled on the Maha Assembly that gave Mr Pawar a clean chit.  

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