Moving from NMC to Rajya Sabha, Mayatai still rooted to the ground Nagpur: Her phone starts ringing even before she settles into a chair inside the DPDC cell at the Nagpur Municipal Corporation headquarters. One call ends, another begins. For Mayatai Ivnate, the transition from corporator to member of the Rajya Sabha has not diluted the importance of local issues — if anything, it has amplified them. "I still get calls from my prabhag every day," she says, glancing at her phone between conversations with officials. "People don't see posts, they see accessibility," she adds. Beyond the steady stream of civic complaints lies a deeper worry — one unfolding in the tribal belts of Deolapar. A recent tiger attack that claimed a villager's life triggered a dharna, but the crisis runs far deeper. During her visit to the protest site in Ramtek taluka, Ivnate met agitators who have been staging a sit-in for nearly a month under the banner of a local Janhit Sanrakshak committee and accepted their memorandum. Villages including Patharai, Dahoda, Pipariya, Dongartal, Bandra, Vadamba, Karwahi, Pindkapar (Lodha), Belda, Khanora, Bothiya-Palora, Katta, Deolapar, Umri, Varghat, Hivra (Bazar), Salai, Tangla and Pusad rehabilitation areas have been living under the shadow of fear for years. "The situation is extremely serious. People are living in fear," Ivnate tells TOI. "They cannot step out after evening, cannot go to farms. This conflict has increased manifold, especially near forest areas." In the past year alone, 24 people lost their lives, hundreds of livestock have been killed, and large swathes of farmland have suffered damage — turning the issue into a full-blown humanitarian crisis.#rajya_sabha #nagpur_municipal_corporation #mayatai_ivnate #deolapar #janhit_sanrakshak_committee
