will change the face of East Nagpur, says Khopde

Krishna Khopde, Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former NMC standing committee chairman, is a soft-spoken person who prefers to call himself a grassroots worker. He came into the limelight after he won the Nagpur East assembly constituency with the biggest upset in the region, he defeated five-time MLA and Congress heavyweight Satish Chaturvedi by 35,216 votes. Khopde's victory was a vindication of the fact that even today a grassroots worker, who has been a corporator for 20 years, can win the poll race. The first time MLA spoke to TOI about his plans for the constituency in the next five years. Excerpts:
Q: What do you plan to do for your constituency?
A: It is always better to be late than ever. It took almost 20 years for the people of East Nagpur constituency to understand that Chaturvedi was only making promises and not delivering on them. In the next five years, I will change the face of East Nagpur constituency, which is mostly dominated by slum areas and unauthorised lay outs like Bhandewadi, Pardi, Dipti Signal, Minimata Nagar, Wathoda, Hivri Nagar Nandanvan etc. I will concentrate on providing basic facilities like drinking water, roads, power etc in my constituency. I also plan for setting up of a 300-bed government hospital for the benefit of people at Minimata Nagar, a state of the art auditorium for cultural programmes and a swimming pool of international standards in East Nagpur. I will also work to allot ownership pattas to slum dwellers and bring about development of unauthorised layouts as promised.
Q: East Nagpur has many slums and unauthorised layouts, what will you do for them?
A: I will give priority in solving the problem of slum dwellers, some of whom have been living here since 25 years and have never been given ownership pattas. Also, over 35% of the layouts here are unauthorised, so I will also stress on development of unauthorized layouts. Many people have paid regularization charges but they are still bereft of civic amenities. Ensuring all basic civic amenities in these areas will be a priority, like providing proper and regular drinking water and lesser load-shedding etc.
Q: People are calling you the 'giant killer'. What is the secret behind it?
A: Despite East Nagpur being known as an area dominated by slums, the voters here were 'educated' enough to come out and exercise their right to vote. This constituency recorded 58% polling, the highest among the six constituencies in Nagpur. People from pockets like Shanti Nagar, Prem Nagar, Bharat Nagar, Minimata Nagar, Bharatwada, Lalganj, Khairipura, Dipty Signal, Pardi, Poonapur, Nandanvan slums and Hasanbagh were fed up of former MLA 's shoddy work and false promises of development over the last 25 years. They wanted a change and so they gave me chance to develop the area. Further, the announcement of my candidature by party chief Nitin Gadkari six months ago too paid off as I got enough time to establish a rapport with voters and party workers.