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The Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray faction is persisting with its attack on the BJP and the central government over a Rs 22,000-crore airplane manufacturing unit being set up in Gujarat instead of Maharashtra. \u201cRidiculous and lame excuses are now being made,\u201d said its spokesperson, Arvind Sawant, speaking to NDTV.<\/p>\n
He said the Maharashtra government led by Eknath Shinde \u2014 who leads a breakaway Sena faction \u2014 is \u201ca slave\u201d of the BJP, majority partner in the ruling alliance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Centre and BJP are against Maharashtra \u2014 the way they have been acting in the past and the present shows that,\u201d Mr Sawant, a Lok Sabha member, claimed, adding, \u201c\u201cMaharashtra is the most conducive state for development of projects. Mumbai is the financial capital of India. The world knows that. Yet, they want to damage its image.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides the Tata-Airbus project, he mentioned the Vedanta-FoxConn unit for manufacturing semi-conductor chips, which was reported to be originally for Maharashtra but went to Gujarat a few months ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe PM (Narendra Modi) had said a bigger project would be given to Maharashtra\u2026 We have no grudges against Gujarat. We want it to develop too. But is there no other state in the country?\u201d he further said.<\/p>\n
He said it \u201cdoes look like\u201d it’s because of elections in Gujarat, due by the end of this year.<\/p>\n
But Maharashtra minister Uday Samant has said the airplane unit deal for Gujarat was signed by the Centre in September last year, when Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government \u2014 \u00a0which comprised the Congress and NCP too \u2014 \u00a0was in power in the state.<\/p>\n
Accusing the Opposition of creating “confusion”, he added, \u201cBe it the Vedanta-Foxconn project or the Tata-Airbus project, the decision about where to set up these projects was taken before this (Eknath Shinde-led) government came to power in the state late June this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Sawant said this argument is \u201cunfair\u201d to the MVA and goes against the BJP’s claim that having a \u201cdouble engine\u201d government \u2014 same party in power as the Centre \u2014 would help states.<\/p>\n
He underlined that Chief Minister Shinde’s loyalist Uday Samant, the minister for industry, had said In September this year that the Tata-Airbus project would come up near Nagpur in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra.<\/p>\n
The unit to be set up by the consortium of Airbus and the Tata group will manufacture C-295 transport aircraft for the Indian Air Force (IAF) in Vadodara in Gujarat. This would mean a military plane being produced in India for the first time by a private company.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Sunday lay the foundation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n