Your 15 years versus my 4 years: Maharashtra CM Fadnavis’ challenge to Cong-NCP | Mumbai news - Hindustan Times
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Your 15 years versus my 4 years: Maharashtra CM Fadnavis’ challenge to Cong-NCP

Hindustan Times | By
Sep 28, 2018 04:25 PM IST

Chief minister says not worried about Mahagathbandhan for 2019 polls

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday laid the ground for the party’s 2019 poll campaign, as he challenged the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders to a debate over their 15-year rule in Maharashtra against his four-year regime.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Maharashtra chief Raosaheb Danve, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari in Mumbai on Thursday.(SATISH BATE/HT PHOTO)
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Maharashtra chief Raosaheb Danve, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari in Mumbai on Thursday.(SATISH BATE/HT PHOTO)

Fadnavis, in his concluding address to party functionaries and leaders at the state executive meeting in Bandra, also said he was not worried about the “Mahagathbandhan or the Mahamahagathbandhan”, referring to the grand alliance that is in the making in the state and the Centre to take on the ruling BJP in the upcoming 2019 Lok Sabha and Assembly polls. He said that people of the state would pick development over any kind of alliance.

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The Congress and NCP are trying to get 10 smaller parties on board against the ruling BJP in the upcoming polls. “I challenge the Congress-NCP leaders to debate with me on any platform comparing their 15 years to and four years of my governance. Let the people of Maharashtra see how they have been cheated for decades. I can show them what can be achieved if there’s political will,” said Fadnavis.

The party has decided to make comparing development milestones between the two governments as the broad theme to take on the Opposition and question its credibility in the coming months ahead of the polls.

The CM pointed to statistics on roads, agriculture investment and irrigation, comparing the work done in past four years to milestones achieved during the previous Congress-NCP regime to drive home his point. For example, the CM said his government had doubled the state’s investment in agriculture to 5,500 crore from 2,500 crore, tripled the length of national highways in the state to 15,000km from just 5,000km, besides building 30,000km of rural roads, and hiked insurance payouts to farmers to 11,900 crore from 7,000 crore.

He also referred to the Maratha agitations pointing out that his government had taken several decisions in favour of the community, while the earlier rulers had not taken a single decision or spent a single rupee to help the Maratha youth.

“There is no way they [Opposition] can compete with us on development. So they will create confusion and indulge in caste politics to take over the narrative in the state. The only way to combat this is to reach out to people directly ,” Fadnavis said.

The CM said that all is well between the Shiv Sena and the BJP and “right decisions would be taken at the right time”, indicating an alliance was on cards.

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