Bawankule Takes Dig At Thackeray Regarding Industrial Projects
Mumbai, 14th November 2022: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Maharashtra unit president Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Sunday took a dig at former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray for leaving industrial projects out of the state. This added a new chapter to the ongoing political war of words between the Eknath Shinde-led government and the former Chief Minister. Bawankule said that if Uddhav Thackeray can be left by his party MLAs, then why can’t industrial projects go out of the state?
During his visit to the Sangli district, Bawankule met party functionaries and local leaders. The opposition is blaming the Eknath Shinde-led state government responsible for the Vedanta-Foxconn and Tata-Airbus projects going to Gujarat. Given this, Bawankule said, “If Uddhav Thackeray’s MLAs can leave him, then why can’t industries move out of Maharashtra? But the new government led by Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis can be blamed for such decisions?”
He alleged that Thackeray spent his entire tenure as chief minister managing the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress and was not concerned whether any industry was coming to Maharashtra.
“But the blame for such decisions is placed on the new government headed by Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis,” Bawankule said. He alleged that during his tenure as chief minister, Uddhav spent time managing his former allies of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) regime – the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). The BJP leader said that the former CM was not worried about whether any industry comes to Maharashtra.
Bawankule, a former state minister, said, “If you want to bring large-scale industrial investment in the state, the chief minister should be available. The previous CM (Thackeray) had not even visited Mantralaya (state secretariat in Mumbai) for 18 months, and senior officials had to wait for his appointment.”
The state BJP president’s remarks came in the wake of the opposition camp criticizing the Shinde-led government in Maharashtra for the transfer of major projects to BJP-ruled states. On Sunday, former state minister and Uddhav’s son Aaditya Thackeray lashed out at Eknath Shinde over his visit to BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh to project a manufacturing sector dedicated to power and renewable energy equipment.
Aaditya Thackeray tweeted, along with a media report, “Economic isolation of Maharashtra. It seems that after the Khoke government came to power, restrictions have been imposed on our state. The project was proposed by the MVA on June 22 for Butibori, Nagpur. But we have been denied five projects due to the incompetence of the Industries Minister.”
Several other leaders from the Uddhav-led Shiv Sena faction, the NCP and the Congress have also criticized the Shinde-led Shiv Sena-BJP government for the loss of the fifth project from Maharashtra. These include Priyanka Chaturvedi and Supriya Sule of NCP, and many others.
Earlier, Maharashtra lost Rs 1.5 lakh crore Foxconn-Vedanta project, Rs 22,000 crore Tata Airbus, Medical Drug Park and Bulk Drugs Park, among other projects and went to BJP-ruled Gujarat.
