After the alleged loss of the Tata-Airbus military aircraft project to neighbouring Gujarat, the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi on Sunday cornered the ruling Eknath Shinde-Devendra Fadnavis government over reports of French multinational company Safran — which manufactures aircraft and rocket engines — allegedly moving its aircraft engine repair and maintenance project to Hyderabad from Nagpur.
Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant, a key member of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena faction known as the ‘Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray)’, has demanded CM Eknath Shinde’s immediate resignation.
Mr. Sawant claimed that Safran’s aircraft engine repair and maintenance project was to come up in Nagpur’s Multi-modal International Cargo Hub and Airport (MIHAN), but had shifted to Hyderabad owing to administrative delays like land acquisition.
“The Safran project had a preliminary investment of ₹1,185 crore and could have helped provide hundreds of jobs. Despite MIHAN having a conducive atmosphere for businesses, how is it that these mega projects are moving out from there? It is especially surprising given that Air India already has an ongoing project involving the maintenance and overhauling of aircraft…this proves that the Shinde-Fadnavis government does not have the capability to administer the State. The CM must resign immediately in order to let Maharashtra move forward,” said Mr. Sawant, terming the current scenario “extremely serious”.
He further said that the much-touted ‘double engine growth’ being propagated by the BJP had come a cropper in Maharashtra where one of its engines was ‘punctured’.
Urging the ruling Balasahebanchi Sena (Shinde faction)- BJP government to stop finger-pointing over the loss of big-ticket projects and begin thinking in a statesmanlike manner for Maharashtra’s progress, Nationalist Congress party (NCP) Supriya Sule has demanded that Mr. Shinde immediately call an all-party meeting to discuss the flight of industries from the State.
“There are contradictory statements emanating from the State Industries Minister [Uday Samant] and the CM himself each time that the State is losing such a project. Instead of pointing fingers, it is high time the government think about how to get future investments in the State. This is not a personal matter but the question of Maharashtra’s development is at stake. The CM must call a special Assembly session to discuss this issue and the matter of declaring a ‘wet drought’ in the State. It does not matter how long this session lasts but he must take all parties and MLAs into confidence,” said Ms. Sule, the MP from Baramati.
Contrasting the State government’s performance with the work done by senior BJP leader and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, Ms. Sule called the latter a doer who did not “waste time in petty party politics” but always looked to the betterment of a particular State.
“Nitin Gadkari is a doer. He is a responsible Minister who never waits for anyone and takes all parties together. As a result, no MP has ever spoken anything against him,” said Ms. Sule.
On Saturday, in a bid to counter the Opposition, Industries Minister Uday Samant had claimed that Maharashtra had received investments to the tune of ₹25,368 crores for the development of 10 projects ever since the Shinde-Fadnavis government came to power in June this year.
The Minister said these projects were expected to generate employment for 7,430 people. The government would soon release a White Paper in this regard, he added.
These projects include Sinarmas Pulp and Paper Pvt Ltd with an investment of ₹20,000 crore in Raigad district with a potential for creating 3,000 jobs; Maharashtra Seamless Ltd at Vilebhagad in Raigad with an investment of ₹375 crore and Varan Beverages in two phases at Supa in Ahmednagar district (₹779.34 crore, jobs 450) among others.
However, Ms. Sule categorically refuted Mr. Samant’s claims, pointing out that all these projects claimed by the Shinde-Fadnavis government were in fact the handiwork of the erstwhile MVA government.
“All these projects are from MVA government’s time… This [Mr. Samant’s claim] is laughable. It was NCP leader Aditi Tatkari, who, as then guardian Minister of Raigad had done all the handholding required for the Sinarmas project. Likewise, Nilesh Lanke was MLA at Supa in Ahmednagar when the beverages project was secured. We have documents to prove our claims which the Shinde government is glibly appropriating as theirs,” she said, remarking that the flight of mega projects from Maharashtra was a trend that had never happened in the past and had only started in the past two months.
Following the alleged ‘loss’ of the Safran project, Uddhav camp leader Aaditya Thackeray, in a tweet, said that investors had lost all faith in the State’s political stability.
Likewise, Congressman Balasaheb Thorat chastised the ruling government for its failure to retain investment in the State, dubbing the trend that had started with Vedanta-Foxconn as “extremely unfortunate.”
Congress leader from Kolhapur Satej Patil wondered whether this was some “conspiracy” to remove livelihoods and jobs from Maharashtra and “give them to a favoured State”.
Since last month, the ruling government has come under heavy flak from the Opposition parties for allegedly losing four mega projects, including the ₹22,000 crore Tata-Airbus project (for manufacturing military transport aircraft) and the ₹1.5 lakh crore Vedanta-Foxconn project, both of which have moved to Gujarat.
