Remarking that Maharashtra’s politics has become “highly unstable,” Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) spokesperson and MP Sanjay Raut on Sunday took a jibe at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Centre stating that the plan for holding mid-term polls in the State had begun in Delhi.
“Maharashtra’s politics has become so unstable that it is true..... preparations for holding mid-term polls in the State have commenced in Delhi,” said Mr. Raut, speaking to presspersons in Mumbai.
The Rajya Sabha MP, recently out on bail after spending more than 100 days in jail, urged both the ruling Shinde-Fadnavis government and the Opposition to cease their sabre-rattling and meditate seriously on why important projects and big-ticket investments were going out of Maharashtra.
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“One big project after another is leaving Maharashtra. Instead of mudslinging, both the ruling and Opposition parties need to sit together and think why this is happening. If Maharashtra keeps weakening industrially in this manner, then there will be no scope for playing anymore politics,” Mr. Raut said.
He alleged that there was a ‘plot’ to weaken Maharashtra economically and that it was imperative that both ruling and Opposition parties find a solution to stem the flow of projects moving out of the State.
“It is important for [Deputy CM] Devendra Fadnavis to hold a dialogue with the top Opposition leadership and have a meeting at the earliest,” he said.
On his release from jail, Mr. Raut had praised Mr. Fadnavis’ work while commending his statement on wishing to end the prevailing political bitterness in the State.
Resuming his Sunday weekly column ‘Rokhthok’ in his party’s mouthpiece Saamana, Mr. Raut claimed that Maharashtra’s political atmosphere had become polluted to such a degree that people were out to “destroy” each other.
“The feeling of rancour among politicians has now reached such a stage where they don’t even want their opponents to be alive,” said Mr. Raut in his column.
He further said that the press had said he had ‘mellowed’ down after he lauded Mr. Fadnavis’s comment about the need to end political bitterness in the State.
Taking jibes at the BJP-ruled Centre, Mr. Raut said that anyone who dissented with the current rulers in Delhi were considered enemies.
“China and Pakistan are not Delhi’s enemies, but those who speak the truth and are straight are treated as enemies…such political leaders lower the country’s stature,” he said, asserting that politics was much freer even in the British rule than it was today.
Comparing the BJP-led Centre with Hitlerite Germany, Mr. Raut said that opposition parties and elected representatives were being ‘run out of Parliament’ by the ruling party (BJP).
