Mumbai, Oct 18: The Democratic Front government in Maharashtra today completed four years of its tenure with Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde claiming to improve the precarious financial position of the state by not borrowing funds as well as paying Rs 2000 crore towards the Rs 90,000 crore debt even as the saffron opposition trained guns on the ruling coalition for its failures on various fronts. The Democratic Front (DF) as well as the opposition have begun extensive exercise to capture power in Maharashtra in the next term as elections to the state assembly are due in October, 2004.

The ruling party has come out with a booklet which is virtually a manifesto for the next year polls while the Shiv Sena-BJP combine drew a `panchnama' to highlight the government's failures in the last four years.
Shinde, who took over as the chief minister from Vilasrao Deshmukh this year, claimed that for the first time in his tenure, the state had not borrowed funds to pay off debts and on the contrary, had disbursed payment of Rs 2000 crore towards the total debts mounting to Rs 90,000.

Criticising the BJP-led Centre for giving a step motherly treatment to the state by not allocating funds for development, he exuded confidence to pay off total debts within five years.

Shinde also claimed that Maharashtra continued to maintain the numero one position in attracting investments in the state.

Bureau Report