On the issue of farmer suicides, Shreehari Aney alleged it was a systematic failure of the government and bureaucracy as they lacked vision.
Maharashtra's top legal officer Shreehari Aney, who resigned on Tuesday after a furore in the state assembly over his controversial speech where he advocated separate statehood for Maharashtra's backward region of Marathwada, told NDTV he had no regrets as he spoke in the interest of the state.
"I resigned voluntarily as the assembly was disrupted because of this issue. I may have been inconvenient and embarrassing for the government but I don't regret speaking in the interest of the people. An advocate general is obliged to speak against the government too if he feels they are wrong," Mr Aney told NDTV.
On Sunday, while in Jalna, Mr Aney had said that Marathwada bore more injustice than Vidarbha and therefore had a greater claim to statehood and he would support if there was a demand.
Mr Aney explained while Babasaheb Ambedkar had envisioned Maharashtra to be divided into three states where they would speak the same language, Shiv Sena patriarch late Balasaheb Thackeray had also promised in the mid-1990s to make Vidarbha into a separate state if the first Sena-BJP government had failed to bring in development.
On the issue of farmer suicides, Mr Aney alleged it was a systematic failure of the government and bureaucracy as they lacked vision.
"The government has failed to curb farmer suicides. It has very little money and when you keep pumping it elsewhere then the priority for farmers becomes nil," he claimed adding he even told the high court there was a failure.
While he backed the need to protect livestock, he said the beef ban law was faulty. "The law says the burden of proof is on the accused on whether he consumed or possessed beef and he has to prove it. That's not correct. I told the court it is faulty," he said.
On the "banning" of dance bars, Mr Aney said he was with the Supreme Court and believed bar dancers had the right to livelihood.
"Government does not want to ban but wants to control dance bars. Unfortunately, moral policing has entered into the government's thinking patterns," he said.