Bharatiya Janata Party MLC Gopichand Padalkar demanded that Chief Minister Eknath Shinde hand over Pune's Wafgaon Fort to the Maharashtra Archaeology Department for preservation. The fort also holds significance as a place of worship for the Dhangar community and all the backward castes.
Wafgaon Fort is the sole remaining fort by built by Malhar Rao Holkar in Maharashtra. It is the birthplace of Maharaja Yashwantrao Holkar, who, at that time, assembled an army of free tribal, backward caste people, and defeated the British 22 times.
In a letter, Padalkar criticised the Congress government, stating, "The history of the Bahujans has been consistently undermined over the last 70 years. However, we have repeatedly urged the government to transfer custody of Wafgaon Fort from the Rayat Shikshan Sanstha to the Maharashtra Archaeology Department to preserve the history of the Holkar empire."
Praising the Shinde government, the BJP leader attributed several "commendable" decisions to it. "The fort building is under the possession of the Rayat Shikshan Sanstha, and the Dhangar brothers fear that the Rs 10 crore funding from the local district administration for the development of fort Vafgaon may be misused," he added.
Padalkar even demanded allowing the Dhangar community to develop it on their own. "We would restore our Rajarajeshwar Yashwantrao Holkar's Wafgaon Fort in a magnificent form through crowd funding," he added.
